After very impressive performances from Blake Griffin and Hasheem Thabeet, two of the countrys top college basketball players, on Saturday, I began to think about the race for this year's NCAA Player of the Year. At the beginning of the season it looked as though the race for PoY would be between a number of players including Notre Dame's Luke Harangody, North Carolina's Tyler Hanbrough, and Davidson's Stephen Curry.Curry has put up big offensive numbers, Harnagody has dominated but has not led his team to wins, and Tyler Hanbrough has underchieved just a bit. The way I see it, the race is between two players in Griffin and Thabeet.
Let us look first at Oklahoma's outstanding big man Blake Griffin. He has the size (6' 10", 250 lbs) to bang inside and the athleticism and finesse to take his game to the perimeter. With averages of 22.8 ppg and 14.2 rpg, he knows how to take over a game at any point. Griffin is expected to leave school after this year and enter the NBA Draft where he is sure to be one of the top two players off the board.
Now for Connecticut's Hasheem Thabeet who is arguably the country's most dominant inside presence. The 7' 3" Thabeet controls the game on the defensive end more so than the offensive side with his 4.4 blocks per game. He also has averages of 13.5 ppg, and 10.8 rpg which shows that he does have some presence on offense. Having only been playing organized basketball for a few years Thabeet is expected to be one of the top two pick in the draft along with Griffin.
These two players have led their teams to #1 and #2 in the season rankings and I expect for them to be matched up against one another come tournament time in March.
Cory Guinn
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