CBSSports.com Player of the Week: Arkansas' Bobby Portis
The 6-foot-11 sophomore averaged 26.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt. He's the main reason the Razorbacks are 13-2.
By
Gary Parrish
•
1 min read
Bobby Portis was born in Arkansas and raised in the state. So he's familiar with the history of the program, the highs and the lows. And he told me, when we sat together this past summer during the LeBron James Skills Academy in Las Vegas, that among the reasons he returned for his sophomore year was so he could hopefully return the Razorbacks to national relevance -- not to mention the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008.
"Every year they talk about Kentucky and Florida ... and nobody else in the conference," Portis told me one afternoon. "But maybe we can change that."
So far, so good.
Portis has Arkansas off to a 13-2 start this season thanks, in part, to last week's wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt in which he averaged 26.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals. He is, for that reason, the CBSSports.com National Player of the Week.
"Bobby Portis was just active all night," Arkansas coach Mike Anderson told reporters after watching Portis go 13 of 18 from the field, and finish with 32 points and 11 rebounds, in Saturday's victory over Vanderbilt. "He was the bell cow. He was the guy we went through."
Portis, a 6-foot-11 forward from Little Rock, is now averaging an SEC-best 18.1 points and 7.8 rebounds while shooting 58.2 percent from the field. He's the only player in the top five in the SEC in both scoring and rebounds, meaning he's a leading candidate, if not the leading candidate, to eventually be named the SEC Player of the Year.
