Last Friday, it was announced that Wyoming’s A.J. Davis would be leaving the program to pursue playing time elsewhere. On the surface, this was not big news. Davis was a solid player and will make a nice transfer for some mid-level program out there, but Wyoming is battling it out with Air Force to determine which team will wear the white jerseys in the 8/9 opening round game of the MWC tournament.

No, the real significance of Davis’ departure was that we are on the the verge of having a uniform number retire itself. Davis wore number 51 for the Cowboys, one of just four 51’s nationally who got meaningful (at least 10 percent of his team’s) minutes. And now we won’t see Davis for the remainder of the season. That leaves three active 51’s: Utah’s David Foster, JMU’s Pierre Curtis, and Campbell’s Preston Dodson.

I’m not sure why 51 is on the verge of extinction. Curtis is a senior, and with Davis out of action for next season, we could be down to just two players wearing the number during competitive play in 2011. There are actually five benchwarmer-types wearing it this season, so there’s still hope. The problem is there’s no role model that wears 51 – the list of NBA players to wear it is not exactly loaded with all-stars. Actually, it’s not loaded with any all-stars. It appears the best 51 of all-time is a toss-up between Michael Doleac, Lawrence Funderburke, and Michael Ruffin.

Here’s the list of players by number this season (10% of minutes played to qualify)…

No.  Players
 1     219
 5     201
 3     193
23     170
21     164
24     162
32     161
 2     154
11     149
22     147
15     147
10     139
33     137
12     137
 4     125
 0     111
20     109
34     104
13      93
25      88
44      84
30      80
14      78
42      69
31      69
45      51
35      42
41      38
50      34
40      30
55      29
54      18
52      18
43      11
53       7
51       4