More than ever, the road to the Final Four is wide open. But the subtext of this college basketball season has become who will win -- who should win -- the Naismith player of the year award: Duke's J.J. Redick or Gonzaga's Adam Morrison?
The question becomes even more complex now, because Redick and Morrison have been eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
Redick's chances took a major hit Thursday night as Louisiana State held him to 11 points and upset top-seeded Duke 62-54 in the Atlanta Regional semifinals. Morrison scored 24 points, but Gonzaga lost here to UCLA 73-71 and Morrison missed two key shots down the stretch that could have sealed a victory.
PHOTO: AP
This underlines my problem with individual awards in team sports. If Redick and Morrison are so valuable, why did their teams get eliminated? If we're really serious about what we say about the team we'd insist on a team standard: recognize all or recognize no one at all.
Our waffling on this issue reflects a growing ambivalence in the United States over sports and competition. We claim to like the team, but we're much more intrigued by individual prowess -- provided it belongs to the right individuals.
This season, Morrison and Redick are the right individuals in the right race. They are in a neck-and-neck battle for two honors: player of the year and scoring champion. Since 1970, only two were voted player of the year and won the scoring title in the same season: Pete Maravich of LSU in 1970 and Glenn Robinson of Purdue in 1994.
If I voted, I would make Morrison and Redick co-players of the year; if pushed, I'd vote for Morrison. He carried the weight of his program and of the West Coast Conference in the NCAA tournament.
He also represented the hopes of all the midmajors. A couple of weeks ago during the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, I spoke to a couple of Bradley players who said they hoped that their team would someday be regarded as a Gonzaga.
Gonzaga seems to have outgrown -- or feels it has outgrown -- its underdog niche. "I think we've kind of proven ourselves out in regards to that over a very long, long period of time here," coach Mark Few said Wednesday. "This is the eighth straight time we've been to the tournament. We've won games every year in this tournament except once."
Morrison agreed, saying, "I feel we've got to be considered one of the top-notch programs, not Cinderella anymore, because look at the type of players were getting now, too."
With all due respect to coach and player, Gonzaga will continue to be an underdog until it reaches the Final Four. That quest was set back and the NCAA tournament will go on without the two marquee players. Maybe Brandon Roy of Washington should have been a candidate for player of the year; his team is still alive.
But no one can take away Morrison's fine season.
"He' s seen everything," Few said of Morrison. "We've seen box and ones, triangles and twos, people face-guarding him."
ON ANOTHER LEVEL: In a pregame speech, Ohtani urged his teammates ‘to throw away their admiration’ for the US, because they ‘came here to surpass them, to reach the top’ Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout had dreamed of this moment, along with millions of fans throughout Japan and the US: the two biggest stars on the planet, longtime teammates, facing each other at 60 feet, 6 inches, the world title at stake. Of course, the count went full on Tuesday night, and Ohtani got Trout to swing under a slider on the outside corner, sealing Japan’s 3-2 win and their first World Baseball Classic (WBC) title since 2009. “This is the best moment in my life,” Ohtani said through a translator. Ohtani, the two-way star who has captivated fans across two continents, was
Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka on Tuesday said she struggled to understand the “hate” she encountered in the locker room amid strained relations between some players following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The world No. 2 has previously said she has nothing against Ukrainians and felt bad for them as Moscow’s action rages on. Belarus has been a staging area for the invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.” “It was really tough for me because I’ve never faced that much hate in the locker room,” Sabalenka said ahead of the Miami Open. “There are a lot of haters on Instagram when you’re losing
With cherry blossoms reaching full bloom in Tokyo, Japanese sports fans erupted in jubilation yesterday, after their compatriots defeated the US to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC). More than a hundred people gathered near Shimbashi Station in the city center to get special newspaper editions celebrating the victory. The scene quickly turned chaotic, with police officers jumping in to help hand out copies. “I am so proud as a Japanese national,” said Yuji Takeno, a 33-year-old company worker who was among those gathered in Shimbashi. “I also play baseball for leisure and it makes me want to work harder, that’s how
When Shohei Ohtani reached second base after hitting a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth inning on Monday, he immediately looked up at the crowd and waved his arms, in a rare sign of emotion, as if he knew what was coming next. Ohtani’s clutch hit sparked a late rally, and moments later Munetaka Murakami delivered a walk-off, two-run double to lift Japan over Mexico 6-5 and into the World Baseball Classic final. Two-time champions Japan were to face the defending champions the US in yesterday night’s title game at 7pm in Miami. After Monday’s game, Japan team members rushed