Another list of college basketball post-season award finalists dropped on Thursday, when we learned the 10 finalists for the Karl Malone Award.
This is given to the nation’s top power forward. Take a look at the final 10 players:
• Ryan Anderson, Arizona
• Henry Ellenson, Marquette
• Perry Ellis, Kansas
• Brice Johnson, North Carolina
• Shawn Long, Louisiana-Lafayette
• Georges Niang, Iowa State
• Taurean Prince, Baylor
• Pascal Siakam, New Mexico State
• Jameel Warney, Stony Brook
• Kyle Wiltjer, Gonzaga
This list is great in that it features three guys from smaller schools in Long, Siakam and Warney, but the two frontrunners for this one are likely Johnson and Niang.
Both Johnson and Niang are studs for their respective teams, as Niang does a little bit of everything for the Cyclones (19.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists per game with some pretty awesome shooting percentages) while Johnson is casually averaging a double-double for the Tar Heels at 16.7 points and 10.2 rebounds a night.
Also deserving of praise are Wiltjer, who is averaging 22 points per game for Gonzaga and shooting just under 45 percent from three, and Kansas’ steady presence down low, Ellis.
Odds are those four will be among the five players who get to meet Malone and travel to Los Angeles for the award ceremony in April.
Here are the list of 10 finalists for college basketball’s other major awards that have dropped this week—the Bob Cousy Award, the Jerry West Award, the Julius Erving Award and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award.
