Would you vote for Jerryd Bayless (Phoenix St. Mary's) as the best high basketball player in Arizona history?/Tucson Citizen photo

That is the question asked Saturday by the Arizona Republic’s Richard Obert, who makes the case that Corey Hawkins, a senior guard from Goodyear Estrella Foothills High school, deserves to be in the discussion.

Hawkins will play at Arizona State next season.

The poll at azcentral.com lists Hawkins, along with Mike Bibby, Sean Elliott, Fat Lever, Jerryd Bayless, Richard Jefferson and Mark Alarie (as well as a “someone else” option).

As of Saturday mid-afternoon, Hawkins was leading the voting. He recently passed Bibby’s career state scoring record.

I’m sticking with Bibby as my selection, although my sentimental pick is Alarie, if only because he was a senior at Phoenix Brophy in the early 1980s when I was a freshman. He had some epic prep battles against 7-footer Brad Lohaus from Phoenix Greenway (usually winning those head-to-head matchups), and then went on to help launch Mike Krzyzewski‘s program at Duke.

Anyway, with four ex-Arizona Wildcats on the list, as well as two local candidates in Elliott (Cholla High) and Lever (Pueblo), I thought the TucsonCitizen.com readership might want to have their say in the voting.

So … check it out at azcentral.com.

More on Hawkins from TucsonCitizen.com from January:
Unrated ASU recruit out to prove he is the best player in the state