Two of college basketball’s biggest stars will not be celebrating with a national championship trophy Monday night. But Ohio State’s Evan Turner and Kentucky’s John Wall won’t leave the weekend empty-handed.
Both players were recognized, along with Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and IUPUI coach Ron Hunter, at the United States Basketball Writers’ Association awards breakfast Friday morning.
Turner, who averaged 20.4 points per game and led the Buckeyes to the Elite Eight, received the Oscar Robertson Trophy as the USBWA Player of the Year. Wall was named USBWA Freshman of the Year.
When introducing Turner, Ohio State coach Thad Matta emphasized Turner earned the award through a desire to be the best. Matta recounted visiting Turner in the hospital following a game in early December in which Turner broke two vertebrae in his back.
“As he’s lying in the hospital bed,” Matta said, “he looks up at me and says, ‘Coach, with this injury, how can I continue to stay dominant?'”
Turner answered his own question, returning after a month-long absence and leading the Buckeyes to a share of the Big Ten title and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.
“I had faith I could come back from the injury,” Turner said Friday. “A lot of it is preparation and confidence. If you have the confidence, than you can do anything.”
Alongside Turner, Kentucky freshman Wall was also honored at the event as the nation’s top freshman. Wall averaged 16.6 points and 6.5 assists per game as Kentucky earned the No. 2 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament.
Kentucky coach John Calipari said Wall faced a tremendous amount of pressure in revitalizing a program that had missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years the previous season. Not only did he have to help the program, Calipari said, but expectations for the player were equally high.
“I’ve had other good players,” Calipari said. “But he was the first that was said to be the number one pick in the NBA draft by November.”
Wall emphasized his pride in injecting new energy into Kentucky’s basketball program.
“We knew it was going to be a tough process, all of us coming together, but we did a great job,” Wall said.
With college basketball’s biggest stars in attendance, the only standing ovation of the morning was directed to IUPUI coach Ron Hunter, who was recognized for his work with the charity organization Samaritan’s Feet. Hunter’s efforts have spurred nearly one million shoes being donated to needy children around the world. After the event, Samaritan’s Feet founder Emmanuel Ohonme handed Wall and Turner a copy of a book titled “Sole Purpose.”
“They’ve been given an opportunity, but they can use that as an opportunity to think of how they can change the world,” Ohonme said.
Also at the event, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was named Coach of the Year. He led Syracuse to a 30-5 and a Big east regular season title record in his 34th season as head coach.
A team of Indiana University journalists is reporting for the Final Four Student News Bureau, a project between IU’s National Sports Journalism Center and the NCAA at the men’s tournament in Indianapolis.
