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BYU's Jimmer Fredette can add another award to his already-crowded trophy case.
The Cougars' alltime leading scorer and winningest player was today announced as the recipient of the Oscar Robertson Trophy, awarded annually by the United States Basketball Writers Association to the National Player of the Year.
Also today, Fredette was named to the Associated Press All-America First Team, becoming the first BYU player to be so honored since Danny Ainge in 1981.
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The USBWA's press release is as follows:
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ST. LOUIS (USBWA) -- The U.S. Basketball Writers Association has selected BYU guard Jimmer Fredette as the winner of the 2010-11 Oscar Robertson Trophy, annually presented to the National Player of the Year.
The 6-2, 195-pound senior from Glens Falls, N.Y., becomes the first national player of the year from BYU and just the second from the Mountain West Conference after Utah's Andrew Bogut won the award in 2005.
Fredette will be presented with the Oscar Robertson Trophy by its namesake Oscar Robertson at the USBWA's annual College Basketball Awards Breakfast on Friday, April 1 at 8 a.m. at The George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston in conjunction with the NCAA Men's Final Four. For tickets to the awards breakfast, visit the USBWA website, usbwa.com.
A first-team USBWA All-American and USBWA District VIII Player of the Year, Fredette was chosen as the national player of the year from a field of 10 finalists. The Mountain West Player of the Year led Cougars (32-5) to the Mountain West regular-season championship and into the Southeast Regional in New Orleans, where they were eliminated by Florida in overtime.
Fredette leads the nation in scoring with 28.9 points per game and, in three NCAA tournament games, he averaged 32.7 points. He also led the team in assists with 4.3 per game and shot 89.4 percent from the free-throw line. He shattered Danny Ainge's school career scoring mark, finishing his career with 2,599 points after scoring a school-record 1,068 points this season.
He had 15 games in which he scored at least 30 points, including four 40-plus-point games and a 52-point game in the Mountain West Conference Tournament semifinals on March 11 vs. New Mexico. The NCAA's active career scoring leader was the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week for the week ending Dec. 12, 2010.
"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."
In addition to the Oscar Robertson Trophy, the Henry Iba Award will be presented Notre Dame's Mike Brey as the association's national coach of the year and Texas coach Rick Barnes will receive the USBWA's Good Guy Award at the awards breakfast. The legendary University of Houston "Phi Slama Jama" teams will also be honored on Friday morning.
The Oscar Robertson Trophy is voted on by the entire membership of the association, which consists of more than 900 journalists. It is the nation's oldest award and the only one named after a former player. The legendary Oscar Robertson was the USBWA's first player of the year in 1959. The USBWA renamed its player of the year award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998.
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The AP story:
Fredette leads AP All-America team
(AP) - Seniors dominated The Associated Press All-America team for the first time in five years.
Jimmer Fredette of BYU, Nolan Smith of Duke and JuJuan Johnson of Purdue, all seniors, were joined on the team Monday by junior Kemba Walker of Connecticut and freshman Jared Sullinger of Ohio State.
It's the most seniors since four made the 2006 team.
Fredette led the nation in scoring at 28.5 points per game while shooting 40.4 percent from 3-point range, a number more impressive because of the shots he lets fly from well behind the line.
He received all but one vote from the 65-member national media panel that selects the weekly Top 25. The voting was done before the NCAA tournament.
Fredette became one of the most popular players in recent memory as teams that lost to BYU were "jimmered."
"I think that it's a great accomplishment. Unbelievable," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "It shows how good his work ethic is. He's a player who has worked his way into an All-American. What he's meant to our program over the last four years — it's really kind of immeasurable."
He is BYU's first All-America since Danny Ainge in 1981.
"If you go out and play your game and have confidence in yourself, you can accomplish great things," Fredette said. "That's what I've always said in my head, and it's worked out."
Smith, who received 61 votes, averaged 21.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and 5.2 assists in leading the Blue Devils to the top of the polls for 10 weeks this season. He assumed most of the ball-handling for Duke after star freshman Kyrie Irving went down early in the season with a toe injury and was responsible for defending the other team's top perimeter player.
"It's been a long process for me, just getting better each year and improving," Davis said. "That's something I hope to share with younger kids coming up. If you put the time in and get better and better and then by the time your senior year hits, you'll start to accomplish some of those individual goals, and that's something that I've done."
Smith is the fifth Duke player to be an All-America since 2000; two of them — Jason Williams and J.J. Redick — were selected twice.
Sullinger burst onto to the national scene by averaging 17.2 points and 10.1 rebounds while shooting 53.6 percent. The 6-foot-9 Sullinger, the seventh freshman All-America over the last five years, received 58 votes.
"I felt he was going to have a great impact not just on our program but on college basketball. The productivity he's had throughout the course of the season has really been incredible," Buckeyes coach Thad Matta said. "He so much fun to coach. As I've said, if I was starting a team, I'd select him to be our first player."
Walker had a strong start to the season and then capped it with an incredible performance in leading the Huskies to five wins in as many days to win the Big East tournament. He averaged 23.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists and was the leader of one of the youngest teams in the country.
"It feels good, especially because I wasn't a preseason All-American," said Walker, who received 51 votes. "I just wanted to come into the season and try to win as many games as we could. From winning, it really helped me be a better player and just get more recognition."
Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said the 6-1 Walker, Connecticut's first All-America since Emeka Okafor in 2004, was "without a doubt the most important player to his team this season. I can't imagine where we would be without him."
The 6-10 Johnson was Purdue's inside presence, averaging 20.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.3 blocks. He was the first Boilermaker chosen to the first team since Glenn Robinson in 1994. Johnson returned to Purdue after considering leaving for the NBA.
"Your senior year, you don't want to leave anything out there, and I definitely have no regrets. It worked out," he said. "The only thing I wanted to do that we didn't get done was go to the Final Four. Other than that, we got it all done."
Marcus Morris of Kansas led the second team and was joined by Derrick Williams of Arizona, Ben Hansbrough of Notre Dame, Jordan Taylor of Wisconsin and Kawhi Leonard of San Diego State.
Fredette and Johnson were both on the preseason All-America team, along with Kyle Singler of Duke, Jacob Pullen of Kansas State and Harrison Barnes of North Carolina.
