Although the season may be over for the BYU Cougars the award season has just begun for Jimmer Fredette, the nations leading scorer and face of college basket ball this season. He has already been named the National Player of the Year for Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports, The Sporting News, and Basketball Times, and has been named to almost everyone's All-American team.
Jimmer recently became the recipient of the Oscar Robertson Trophy, given by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and was picked to the AP's first team All-America. The Oscar Robertson Trophy is given to the USBWA's National Player of the Year. He is the first BYU player to ever be named National Player of the Year and the second in the MWC; Utah's Andrew Bogut was the first to recieve the award.
Jimmer is also the first All-American from BYU since Danny Ainge in 1981. He was an almost unanimous pick for All-American, receiving 64 of the 65 media votes. The other players named first team All-America are Duke's Nolan Smith, Purdue's JaJuan Johnson, Connecticut's Kemba Walker, and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger.
Jimmer had an incredible season and was a great teammate and leader for our team," BYU head coach Dave Rose said. "His main focus throughout the season was to help our team be successful and win games. Jimmer is a great player and I'm proud of all of his accomplishments.
This year Jimmer led the nation in scoring at 28.9 points per game along with 4.3 assists, 3.4 rebounds. He also has pretty amazing shooting numbers, considering how well he's defended and the shots he takes, at 45.2% from the field and 40.4% from three with a solid 1.40 points per shot.
These will (hopefully) be the first of many accolades Jimmer will receive as the season comes to a close. He definitely deserves to be National Player of the Year (although the one All-America voter who didn't vote for Jimmer probably doesn't think so, probably a Duke or UConn fan). So let us all remember Jimmer Fredette and what he has done for BYU. Because in ten, twenty years when future generations ask us about the 2011 Player of the Year, we can answer them, and tell them he was one of the greatest players to walk the halls of BYU.