Veteran guards atop player of the year list
The last thing Marquette coach Buzz Williams wanted was for Austin Freeman to be injured. But given Freeman’s influence in Georgetown’s win over Marquette — despite a sprained ankle — Williams probably wouldn’t have minded seeing Freeman parked on the bench.
Recommended Stories
“I think he’s everything that college basketball should be about so I want him to play as much as Coach [John] Thompson [III] does,” Williams said.
With a heroic effort in Georgetown’s eighth straight win, Freeman backed up his Big East preseason player of the year selection and strengthened his candidacy for similar regular season honors. He’ll get to state his case further with a head-to-head debate against Connecticut junior Kemba Walker, a front-runner not only for MVP honors in the Big East, but nationally as well.
Walker clearly is among the most improved players in the country with his scoring average jumping from 14.6 to 22.8 points a game this season. He’s also pulling down 5.3 rebounds a contest, not an easy task for a 6-foot-1 guard.
“Last year I think people played off him because I think his shot wasn’t as consistent,” Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said. “Now he’s making that jump shot so if you push up he can go by you.”
| Up next |
| No. 9 Georgetown at No. 13 UConn |
| When » Wednesday, 7 p.m. |
| Where » XL Center, Hartford, Conn. |
| TV » MASN |
While Freeman (18.5 ppg) and Walker have excelled, both have better respective supporting casts with the Hoyas (20-5, 9-4 Big East) and Huskies (19-5, 7-5) than Marshon Brooks, who has averaged more than 25 points in conference contests for lowly Providence (14-11, 3-9).
Freeman and Walker have struggled in their teams’ defeats, but Brooks has at least 20 points in every Big East game but one, including his 43-point outburst against the Hoyas.
“That was probably one of the best performances I’ve seen since my freshman year with [Stephen] Curry,” Hoyas senior guard Chris Wright said, referring to Curry’s 30-point masterpiece against Georgetown in the 2008 NCAA tournament.
Notre Dame’s Ben Hansbrough (17.3 ppg, 4.1 apg), Villanova’s Corey Fisher (15.8 ppg, 5.2 apg) and Pittsburgh’s Brad Wanamaker (12.6 ppg, 5.0 apg, 5.0 rpg) also will ensure that no one runs away with the Big East’s MVP award easily.
“Let’s wait and see how everybody ends up, how every team ends up,” Thompson said in an interview on 106.7 FM last week in which he endorsed Freeman over Walker. “Kemba’s having a terrific year. … Let’s just wait for a couple weeks and see how things shake out.”
