Arizona’s Stanley Johnson makes Naismith Trophy Midseason Top 30 list
Feb 12, 2015, 10:18 PM | Updated: 10:19 pm
Arizona’s Stanley Johnson is in the running for about every major award it seems. The latest is the Naismith Trophy, as he was named to the midseason top 30 list on Thursday.
The Naismith Trophy is named after the inventor of the game of basketball, James Naismith, and is given to the top college player of the year.
Johnson is one of three Pac-12 players and one of five freshmen nationwide named to the list. He leads all other freshmen in the conference in scoring with 14.6 points per game and ranks seventh out of all players in the Pac-12 with 1.5 steals per game.
He is just one of two freshmen in the nation (Duke’s Jahlil Okafor) averaging 14.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. He also leads the Wildcats in scoring and rebounding (6.8 RPG). Johnson has scored in double figures 20 times in his 23 career games.
No one from Arizona has ever won the trophy in its 46-year history. Lew Alcindor from UCLA won the first recognition in 1969 and Creighton’s Doug McDermott took home the most recent prize.
The list of candidates for the trophy will narrow down to 10 in early March and the winner will be named on April 6.
