In wide-open Wooden Award race, why not Luka Garza?
Dayton Flyers forward Obi Toppin has been improving his chances to win the John R. Wooden Award as he continues to impress this season. (2:06)
There is no clear consensus for the Wooden Award in this, the first week of February. At least for this week, however, ESPN.com’s college basketball experts came to a majority opinion around Iowa’s Luka Garza — with Dayton’s Obi Toppin right behind.
Myron Medcalf, senior college basketball writer: I’m not sure this list has ever been more fluid in my time covering college basketball. I really feel like all of this could change in the coming weeks, because there are so many good players lurking and capable of a string of breakout efforts that could change the race. I’ll say this even after Iowa got drilled at Purdue on Wednesday night: I don’t think you have a list right now if you don’t have Iowa’s Luka Garza at the top of it. The numbers are wild, but if you watched him bully an Illinois team playing for sole possession of first place in the Big Ten on Sunday, you witnessed the tangible evidence of his unmatched dominance in college basketball this season.
Joe Wieskamp drives and dishes to Luka Garza for the jam.
Then I think you have to put Obi Toppin at the No. 2 spot. He’s unstoppable for a Dayton team that’s trying to become the first undefeated Atlantic 10 champion in almost 15 years. From there, it gets weird.
I reserve the right to change these answers at any time. In a world without Toppin and Garza, I think we’d be focusing on Markus Howard‘s 27.9 PPG and 40% clip from the 3-point line. I think Devon Dotson has played some of the best basketball in America too. He’s on the list.
At No. 5? I don’t know. It’s hard to pick between Myles Powell and Vernon Carey Jr. The SEC is stacked with a bunch of talented players, and the Pac-12 is difficult to measure. I’ll go against the grain (surprised, right?) and pick Malachi Flynn, who is enjoying almost a 5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio right now for an undefeated San Diego State squad and hitting 39% of his 3-pointers. That has to count for something.
Jeff Borzello, college basketball insider: I think Garza should be the favorite right now. He’s been putting up outrageous offensive numbers all season, but during Iowa’s recent stretch that pushed the Hawkeyes into the top 15 nationally, he has been dominant. Garza averaged 26.0 points, 10.8 boards and 2.4 blocks during their five-game winning streak, then dropped 25 points and 10 boards against Illinois on Sunday and 26 more points in a losing effort against the Boilermakers. He’s scoring inside and out, he’s a factor on the glass at both ends of the floor, he’s blocking shots and his team is winning. He’s my pick as of today.
Toppin is No. 2 for me. The Flyers have arguably the best offense in the country, and Toppin is the primary reason. He has played himself into the lottery discussion in June’s NBA draft and has been consistently dominant since day one this season.
Here’s my favorite stat for Dotson, my No. 3. Dotson is the only player in the country at least 5.0 adjusted points above a replacement player on both offense and defense — one of just nine players in the past 12 seasons to achieve that.
I’ll go Howard at 4. What’s left to say about him? He’s perhaps the biggest must-watch player in college basketball and leads the country in scoring for a Marquette team pushing toward a top-six seed. Taking out the game against Xavier in which he left midway through the second half due to injury, Howard has averaged 33.1 points in his last seven games. The guy is ridiculous.
For the fifth spot, I think Powell edges out Carey and Flynn.
John Gasaway, college basketball writer: My top five is as follows: Toppin, Garza, Udoka Azubuike, Howard and Carey. Choosing between Toppin and Garza is especially difficult. They’re both high-volume masters of efficient scoring who lift their entire teams. To carry this one step further, both Dayton and Iowa appear to be headed for their best NCAA tournament seeds in years (possibly, in the case of the Flyers, ever). To me, all of the above is the profile of a national player of the year. At the end of the day, a slight edge goes to Toppin, because he’s more of a distributor (even though Garza is clearly superior on the offensive glass — see, this really is difficult).
With Azubuike, it’s possible we underrate him as onlookers because we expect someone this big to be this good. Opposing players, however, look particularly pained after they’ve been dunked on repeatedly or when their shot has been swatted away yet again. We should probably listen to those opponents. They might be on to something. Howard is the one player out of all of these guys with the most potential to do something completely outrageous with a stat line within a single game. Carey might just be the best player in the ACC as a freshman, and that’s saying something. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with any of these five.