Briante Weber's college career came to an abrupt and disheartening halt last Saturday, as the VCU point guard tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus when his knee buckled on a jump stop near the end of the second half.

That means Weber, a senior who didn't start for the Rams until last season, will fall 12 steals shy of the all-time steal record of 385 set by John Linehan of Providence in 2002. Now of course, steals weren't considered an official statistic until 1985-86, so this isn't meant to be a historical catch-all. But still, getting to shatter a record from a near-30-year period would have been awesome achievement for Weber, and it's a shame he won't get the chance to become that record holder. 

However, just because Weber won't be able to call himself the all-time steals leader in collegiate history doesn't mean that he isn't a historically great ball hawk and perimeter defender. In fact, a quick look at advanced numbers tell us that he is by far the best steal accumulator on a per-possession basis this decade. 

Since 2004 -- when Ken Pomeroy began tracking steal rate on his website -- Weber has had the best success out of any player during his four years. Not only has Weber led the NCAA in steal rate during all four of his seasons -- although this season likely will not count as he'll end up just slightly short of the minutes threshold needed to qualify for the end of season title -- but Weber currently has four of the five highest steal rate marks of the past decade in KenPom's database. His margin of victory in 2013 -- 30% higher than second place -- is by far the highest in the database, even though this season's would have shattered that mark at 64 percent higher than second place (his 8.72 mark dwarfs that of second-place Gary Payton II at 5.32). 

So basically, not only does Weber dominate offensive players by ripping the ball out of their hands, he dominates his other ball-hawking peers in the sheer quantity of times that he does it. So how did he accomplish this?

While Weber would be an elite defender anywhere he played due to his skill set -- which we'll get to in a second -- it's really hard to separate him from the scheme that he played in. Truly, there has never been a player more born to play in a distinctive scheme than Weber was to play in HAVOC.

So let's start by introducing HAVOC, Shaka Smart's high-pressure defensive scheme that employs three distinct types of press: a straight man scheme, a high-pressure man-to-man trapping scheme, and a diamond 1-2-1-1 zone. Smart tends to use the man-to-man trapping scheme more often than the others. In man presses, Weber was typically utilized on the primary ball-handler, where his goal was simply to make life as miserable for the opposing point guard as humanly possible. In the zone press, he was utilized either in the foul line spot where his job was to defend the ball and force the corner trap, or at midcourt -- where his role was something like a free safety roaming the middle looking for lazy throws.

That's where his skill came into play. To begin, there might not be a more purely athletic point guard in the country than Weber. Both laterally and vertically explosive, Weber not only has the ability to stay in front of any player that you put in front of him, but he also can leap with the best of them. Put that into conjunction with a long 6-foot-7 wingspan and elite hand-eye coordination, and Weber is quite literally the prototype defensive player for a press-heavy style of play.

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about:

The end of that clip leads us to the other part of Weber that makes him who he is: the pure, unbridled, unrivaled intensity. It's part of what makes him such an effective defender, and it's the entirety of what makes him one of the most fun basketball players to watch. The motor, the hustle, the energy, the absolute and resolute fearlessness. His teammates feed off of it. The crowd feeds off of it. And he feeds off of it.

There's not another player in the country that would make this play: 

He not only has that type of energy, but he never goes at anything less than 100 percent on the floor and never gives up on any play. That, along with his tendency to simply get in the way of the proceedings around him leads to him forcing turnover after turnover.

Even when he isn't able to force a turnover, Weber makes things extremely difficult for the offense just through the sheer amount of ground he is able to cover all over the floor.

That physical ability along with his anticipation skill is always on full display. A lot of the time, it seems like Weber knows what the offensive player is going to do before the other player has even decided.

That type of anticipation would also be on display in full-court press settings when Smart would deploy him as the center fielder in the middle of the Rams' diamond press.

But mostly, Weber was at his best on-ball, where he could pickpocket even the best ball-handlers. 

And strip even the best scorers going up for layups without fouling, like he proved against Oregon's Joseph Young earlier this season.

This was a complete college defender who had every single move in his bag of tricks before his NCAA career ended. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Briante Weber, though far from the best player in the country, may have had the best, most finely-crafted singular skill in the country -- the ability to steal the basketball from the opposition. 

Weber is the prototypical perimeter defender that embodies everything coach Shaka Smart's HAVOC stands for. He may go on to have a pro career that makes him millions of dollars -- and it's entirely possible that still happens, as he's that great on the perimeter defensively -- but he'll never quite fit in as perfectly as he did in Richmond.

And for all of those reasons, it's an absolute shame that we'll never get to see Weber, a true artist of his craft, suit up for a college basketball game again. 

Briante Weber was a true artist at his craft in college. (USATSI)
Briante Weber was a true artist at his craft in college. (USATSI)