Naismith Men's College Player of the Year

We saw that with the Fab Five, right? Now they didn't do the undefeated thing or the conference championship thing or even the players of the year thing like Nebraska Volleyball where you've seen Harper Murray, Andy Jackson, Bergen Riley all get their fair share of recognition.

Bergen Riley's been National Player of the Year.

or certainly Big Ten player of the year.

Fab Five never had a Big Ten player of the year.

You look at 91 through 95, in the national player of the year was Larry Johnson, Christian Laettner, Calvert Chaney, Glenn Robinson, and Joe Smith.

And I know Michigan kind of fell off.

And maybe we can do player comps when we get back for our final segment.

And, and he was nervous being in that environment coming out of the city, being at Villanova, which was predominantly white, and, and, and he wasn't as comfortable there, and he fought through everything.

Um- But it made him, when he was a senior, um, he was nominated for National Player of the Year and, um, when he first came in as a freshman, they, they had a class where you had to get up and speak, a public speaking class, and he was sweating profusely.

Sweating so bad that he couldn't speak.

Mm.

...

these are all the things he went through.

In his senior year, he was nominated for National Player of the Year and in, and they flew us out to LA because they had all the, the top five players in the country.

It was JJ Redick, Adam Morrison-

And then next year I think he'll be, like, 18, nine, three assists, shoot 42% from three, and it'll be like, [laughs] "Oh, shit, John Scheyer's got another one." Um-

What if, what if he, what if he's the National Player of the Year again? What if they get another National Player of the Year?

Hey, look, you know what? You know what? Then it's just inevitable.

Then it's just-

They recruited him to come play point guard for the basketball team.

In February of '61, they're playing Ohio State, which was the number one team in the country, and that team had Jerry Lucas, who played for the Knicks and was the College Player of the Year, John Havlicek, who went on to have this Hall of Fame career with the Boston Celtics.

Bobby Knight played on that basketball team.

Mm.

Or preseason top 25, which actually has you at third in the Big Ten preseason standings that I have.

But, uh, with Jeremy Fears back, could be National Player of the Year.

Coen Carbach could be the best dunker I've ever seen in my entire life.

It, it...

Yeah.

There's a, there's a lot of excitement around the program right now, and it, it really starts with Jeremy Fears and where he can be at nationally.

You know, preseason National Player of the Year.

Many are saying the best point guard in the country.

But I will tell you this.

If we are in the middle of January and Tyler Tanner is at 23.9 points, 7.1 assists, he's gonna probably be at worst, at worst he's gonna be a steal and a half a game Um, then if those are his numbers and Vanderbilt is a ranked team, then I would blindly project that Tanner will be as strong of a case as literally anyone in the country to be national player of the year.

If he is averaging that on a ranked team and who's clearly, uh, that amount of value.

Trey Young's numbers were truly ridiculous.

Um, like I, he's going to be above 20 points per game.

The assists are going to be, um, his points and assists both will go up this season, not to Trey Young numbers, but they'll be better than they were.

And if Vanderbilt is a nationally relevant team, yes, he will be a national player of the year candidate.

I mentioned, I don't have the Commodores in the top 25 and one.