Luka Garza wins AP POY
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/31178909/iowa-hawkeyes-luka-garza-named-ap-men-college-basketball-player-year
Congrats on a fine career and a lifetime achievement award.
He had 50 votes. Ayo Dosunmu was second with 6 votes. Cade Cunningham (Okie St) had 3 votes and Jared Butler (Baylor)/Corey Kispert (Gonzaga) had 2 each to round out the voting.
Let's hope Dickinson is Garza 2.0!
I think you have modest dreams. Hunter is already better than him in a couple of areas and has only one year of college ball behind him. (I'm not saying he's better overall.)
Being compared to the player of the year and multiple season All-Big player is a modest dream? I think Hunter is better than him in no offensive categories but every defensive one. If Hunter could develop Garza's footwork and jump shot at 7'1 he would be the best player in college basketball. I think that is a smidge better than modest; but ill take it!
I used modest because I think Hunter has a higher ceiling. Professionally for sure.
I don't mind Garza being POY but he's barely on the NBA radar. I would have traded him for several guys in college ball this past year.
Fuck the NBA anyway.
Kid was a phenomenal college player, I like that they didn't base the award on draftability or something, college basketball is its own sport.
I agree with you about Dickinson's upside tho, this kid is a beast.
Seems like this award was decided in the pre-season. If he was that good, he could play defense.
cue Illinois AD letter writing campaign calling Ayo the AP POY
To be fair, the Illinois AD is only asking that Ayo be declared Co-POY. And he does not mean that to diminish in any way the nice year Garza had.
Tigers won
Trends point to 162-0!
Congrats to him. He's very much a one-sided player but he's elite at that so I can see why he'd get the award. Good luck playing overseas.
There's a backhanded compliment, if I've ever seen one, lol
well deserved. I picked on him because during the season. But the kid can ball . ..
Congrats to him, but man, Iowa basketball is a smoking crater. Fran is never going to have a team as talented as this one and they couldn't even win the big ten or make the sweet 16. I know Iowa has a lower ceiling than a lot of schools, but there's ton of coaches out there who can do a lot more with the talent they had this year. I feel bad for Iowa, but not for Fran
A team that makes the round of 32 is not a smoking crater. Michigan under Ellerbe was a smoking crater.
Relative to expectations is was definitely a crater. How much smoke is debatable. The AP had Iowa ranked 5 in the preseason and Garza was the runaway NPOY from start to finish.
Fran needs to do what John Beilein did and higher a defensive coach and let him run a portion of practice. If Fran does that, Iowa could become scary.
He earned it.
Hunter.... you're next