Rush The Court

Earlier this month the Basketball Hall of Fame announced its list of ten finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, given annually to the nation’s top point guard, and created a minor controversy when it left off Wisconsin star Jordan Taylor. At the time, the ten finalists appeared to be deserving although some might question Jimmer Fredette‘s passing ability/frequency and Demetri McCamey‘s play recently:

• Norris Cole, Cleveland State
• Corey Fisher, Villanova
• Jimmer Fredette, BYU
• DJ Gay, San Diego State
• Brandon Knight, Kentucky
• Demetri McCamey, Illinois
• Mickey McConnell, St. Mary’s
• Nolan Smith, Duke
• Isaiah Thomas, Washington
• Kemba Walker, UConn

Still, with Taylor’s nation-leading assist-to-turnover ratio (4.03) and the fact that the Badgers are a borderline top 10 team in the country, he certainly seemed like a worthy candidate and we could strongly argue for him over at least four of the candidates. It was not until February 12th, however (ballots were submitted on February 1st), that most of the nation took note of Taylor’s talents during his phenomenal 27 point, seven assist (with only one turnover), four rebound performance in a 71-67 comeback win over then-undefeated #1 Ohio State. In an interesting if not unsurprising about-face, the Cousy Award selection committee announced that it had added Taylor’s name to the list of finalists, increasing the list of candidates to 11 players. While some will point to the fact that Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan is involved in selecting the eventual winner and imply that he had done some behind-the-scenes campaigning for Taylor, a source for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Ryan had nothing to do with Taylor’s recent inclusion. It is also worth noting that this is by no means unprecedented for this particular award, as last season they added Evan Turner‘s name to the field late after there had been some debate as to whether Turner was actually the team’s point guard before eventually deciding that he was, as anybody who watched a single Buckeye game last season could easily tell you. Before you try to read too much into this and assume that Taylor will win the award, you should remember that, although Turner was added to the list and was clearly a strong candidate, he did not win the award last season, an honor that went to Maryland‘s Greivis Vasquez.