As the NCAA’s regular season comes to a close and Conference Tourneys get amped up heading towards March Madness, it’s time to hand out some hardware.
Creighton’s Doug McDermott is the clear frontrunner for National POY, Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall is probably the favorite for Coach of the Year, and Duke’s Jabari Parker and Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins are in a dogfight for Freshman of the Year.
Early March is also the time that individual conferences start to hand out their own awards, beginning with the Big 12 Conference.
On Monday, the league coaches made a surprising choice selecting Iowa State senior forward Melvin Ejim as this season’s Big 12 Player of the Year.
It’s not that Ejim doesn’t deserve the award, he finished 2nd in the conference in both scoring(18.2 ppg) and rebounding(8.6 reb), including a conference record 48 points against TCU, in addition to leading the Cyclones to a 9-9 Big 12 mark and 23-7 overall record.
But it was definitely a surprise to see Ejim win the award over Oklahoma State sophomore Marcus Smart, the conference’s preseason POY, who averaged 17.9 ppg, 5.6 reb, and 4.7 ast, and Kansas teammates Andrew Wiggins(16.8 ppg and 5.8 reb) and Joel Embiid(11.2 ppg, 8.1 reb, and 2.6 blk), who are all probable Top 10 Lottery picks in the upcoming 2014 NBA Draft.
Ejim becomes the first Iowa State player to win the award since Jamal Tinsley back in 2001.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
