Apparently releasing midseason awards is something that’s happening this week. NBCSports.com released their midseason awards and midseason All-American teams on Wednesday. ESPN’s turn was Thursday. Jeff Goodman put out the ESPN awards and though he didn’t choose Kris Dunn for Midseason Player of the Year like Rob Dauster of NBCSports.com did, he did keep Dunn as a First Team All-American. Goodman also has Ben Bentil jumping into the mix as a Third Team All-American.
It may be difficult for Friar fans to get over last night’s home loss against Marquette. This may help and it may also help them to recall how special this season has been to date. NBCSports.com has released their midseason awards and All-American teams. While these awards mean little in that they aren’t official, they do give a good snapshot of Providence’s first half of the season. Kris Dunn was named Player of the Year and Ben Bentil was named Most Improved Player. Dunn was also named a First Team All-American.
The Big East Player of the Week honor is staying in Friartown as Kris Dunn was named POW a week after Ben Bentil was given the same weekly award. This is Dunn’s third time being named the Big East’s Player of the Week after the Providence junior was named the award winner in week’s 1 and 3 of the season. Dunn was also the league’s preseason Player of the Year. Dunn averaged 23 points/game, 8 rebounds/game, 7.5 assists/game and 2.5 steals/game in Providence’s 2-0 start in Big East play.
The Atlanta Tipoff Club released their early season watch list for the 2016 Naismith Trophy, an award given to the College Player of the Year in Men’s Basketball. The early season list contains 50 players and the next release of a watch list by the Atlanta Tipoff Club will come on February 11, 2016 when they put out their midseason watch list of 30 players. Kris Dunn is one of the 50 names on the early season watch list and joins 3 other Big East players on the list: Ryan Arcidiacono (Villanova), Kellen Dunham (Butler) and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera (Georgetown).
Another National Player of the Year watch list has been released and, not surprisingly, Kris Dunn’s name is among the list of 33 players being considered for the award. The Oscar Robertson Trophy is given out by the USBWA annually to the National Player of the Year. The USBWA is made up of nearly 1,000 sports journalists and each member is eligible to vote for this and other USBWA awards. For the purpose of full disclosure, I am a USBWA member and a voter for this award. Dunn was also named to the Wooden Award watch list that was released on November 17th.
The Big East had a very successful week as a league during “Feast Week”. There were 4 Big East teams that won their respective holiday tournaments (Creighton, Marquette, Villanova and Xavier) and Providence finished 2nd in the Wooden Legacy Tournament. Through the first few weeks of the season the Big East is 45-14 (.763) against non-league opponents. On Monday, the Big East released their weekly awards and for the second time in three weeks the Big East Player of the Week is Kris Dunn.
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