What if the best player in the country is a freshman? That was the case last season, but nobody recognized Carmelo Anthony's sovereign brilliance until he had dragged Syracuse to the Final Four. By then it was too late.
Not only did Anthony fail to win the John R. Wooden player of the year award -- he wasn't even among the Wooden's 22 finalists. When the Associated Press announced its All-America first team, Anthony wasn't on it. The voting for both honors took place before Anthony led Syracuse to the NCAA title.
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| Kris Humphries is proving to be a dominant player just a few weeks into his college career. (AP) |
"We didn't want it to be a half-court game," Gillen said of the Cavs' frenetic 86-78 victory, "because we would have had very little chance -- they would have just pounded it down to Humphries."
Humphries averages 24.4 points and 11.4 rebounds, leading the Big Ten by a wide margin in both categories. Since the Big Ten began tracking such statistics in 1959, no freshman has led the league in both.
Nationally, Humphries ranks fifth in scoring, fourth in rebounding and first in underexposure. He's good, and he's getting better. In his first three games, he averaged 24 points and 10.7 rebounds. In his past four, those numbers have been 24.8 and 12. Teams know Humphries is coming, and they cannot stop him. Three weeks into the season Humphries has been named Big Ten player of the week twice -- the first freshman to do that.
"From the first moment he basically got every rebound he wanted to get, and finished when we got him the ball close to the basket," said Minnesota coach Dan Monson. "His first scrimmage (points total) was in the 30s, and he's pretty much had a double-double every time we've kept statistics."
Through seven games, he has five double-doubles. The other two? He had 26 points and seven rebounds against Furman, then 25 points and nine rebounds against Oral Roberts.
Humphries has done more than feast on inferior competition. That 32-13 was against Virginia, remember, and against Utah he had a tidy 20-and-10 against a Utes front line featuring one and possibly two future NBA players -- 6-10 Andrew Bogut and 6-10 Tim Frost.
"A great player," Utes coach Rick Majerus called Humphries.
The greatest in the country? Could be.
While we're asking questions, someone answer this one: How good would No. 3 Duke be with Humphries? Duke signed him out of Hopkins High near Minneapolis but let him go May 19 when Humphries asked to be released from his letter of intent. At the time, Humphries' father was making Duke coaches queasy by asking about guaranteed playing time for his son. Also, Duke felt satisfied with its interior rotation of senior Nick Horvath and sophomores Shelden Williams, Shavlik Randolph and Michael Thompson.
Seven months later, Horvath rarely plays and Thompson is transferring, and while Duke remains satisfied with Williams and Randolph, don't let anyone tell you Humphries wouldn't be the best big man on that team. He doesn't block shots like Williams or Randolph, perhaps because he's too busy matching their production elsewhere (the Duke duo averages 20.6 points and 13 rebounds in 45.5 minutes). When Humphries gets the ball near the basket, it's over. He is shooting 56.3 percent from the floor and 72.9 percent from the foul line, and again, he has played just seven college games. Those numbers will get better before they get worse.
"His game reminds me, and this is dangerous, but I compare him to a young Karl Malone," Monson said. "His strength is finishing around the basket. It's what he does. But his perimeter game will get better and better, and make people honor that."
Humphries is playing his way right out of college, but if he does enter the 2004 NBA Draft, Monson can't feel too bad. He wasn't supposed to get Humphries in the first place. After Humphries signed with Duke, Monson had other things to worry about -- like the loss of three starters, including 6-11 sophomore Rick Rickert to the draft, off last season's 19-14 team.
"This was a team that (after last season) had a lot of question marks," said Monson, whose team is off to a 5-2 start. "When a player like (Humphries) lands in your lap -- it's a Christmas, Valentine's and birthday present all wrapped in one -- in June or July, you start thinking, 'Hey, this could be the solution to a lot of those problems that this team had.'"
And it could be the answer to a question everyone whiffed on last season: What if the best player in the country is a freshman?
