The Pac-10 (now Pac-12) Conference has been handing out basketball Player of the Week awards since the 1983-84 season. A University of Washington player has received the accolade on 44 occasions, but only twice has a Husky freshman been designated the league’s top player over a seven-day span.
The first was Dec. 26, 2006, when freshman center Spencer Hawes, now of the Philadelphia 76ers, won after averaging 23.0 points and 10.5 rebounds in a pair of victories.
Hawes opened that week with his first career double-double in registering career-highs of 23 points and 12 rebounds in an 88-72 win over 12th-ranked LSU. Hawes shot 10-for-16 from the field.
The 7-foot freshman capped the week by matching his career high with 23 points and nine rebounds in an 80-51 win over Weber State. For the week, Hawes shot 20-for-30 (.667) from the field, 6-for-7 (.857) from the free throw line, and averaged 2.0 assists and 1.5 blocked shots.
The second time was Monday, when Tony Wroten received the award after averaging 21.5 points, 6.5 points and 4.5 assists in a sweep over over Oregon State and Oregon in Washington’s first two conference games.
Wroten led Washington with 26 points and career-high nine rebounds in a 95-80 victory over Oregon State Thursday. He went 10-for-16 (.625) from the field, 5-for-7 from the free throw line and also had four assists, a steal, plus a season-low-equaling two turnovers.
In the Huskies’ 76-60 win over Oregon on New Year’s Eve, Wroten had17 points, five assists, four rebounds, blocked a shot, had a steal and, again, had two turnovers (after averaging five turnovers a game through Washington’s non-conference schedule).
Wroten ranks second in the conference in scoring at 16.8 ppg and is fourth in steals per game at 1.6. He also leads all Pac-12 freshmen in both categories.
In Wroten’s past five games, he has scored 27 points (career high) against UC Santa Barbara, 23 (South Dakota State), 12 (Cal State Northridge), 26 (Oregon State) and 17 (Oregon).
Wroten’s 27 points against UC Santa Barbara equaled a UW freshman scoring record set by Andra Griffin in 1978 and matched by Paul Fortier (a UW assistant coach) in 1983, Mark Sanford in 1995 and Isaiah Thomas in 2008.
Wroten’s award is the first by any Husky player since Feb. 14, when guard Isaiah Thomas averaged 22.5 points, 5.0 assists, 3.0 rebounds and shot 56.5 percent from the field (13-for-23), including 10-for-18 from beyond the 3-point line (55.6 percent in a sweep of the Bay Area schools that snapped a season-high three-game losing streak.
In Washington’s 109-77 win over Cal, Thomas had 23 points, nine assists and four rebounds in just 26 minutes. In an 87-76 win over Stanford, Thomas ended up with 22 points on 6-for-12 shooting.
That marked Thomas’ third Pac-10 Player of the Week award for the season, and made him the seventh Husky to receive the award multiple times in one season.
Quincy Pondexter (2007-10) holds the school record (and also the conference mark) with five Player of the Week awards in one season. UW players with multiple conference awards in one season:
- 5: Quincy Pondexter, 2009-10
- 3: Brandon Roy, 2005-06
- 3: Jon Brockman, 2007-08
- 3: Isaiah Thomas, 2010-11
- 2: Chris Welp, 1985-85
- 2: Todd MacCulloch, 1997-98
- 2: Deon Luten, 1998-88
The Huskies (8-5), winners of three in a row following an embarrassing home loss to South Dakota State, play at Colorado Thursday (6 p.m. tip) and at Utah Saturday (11 a.m. tip) before returning to Alaska Airlines Arena on Jan. 10 to face Seattle University.
21 Comments
In my U of W Journalism news writing class decades ago, an error of fact earned us a failing mark on that project. FYI, CJ Wilcox won the first POW award this year (back in Nov?). Making your statement: “….Wrotens award is the first by any Husky player since Feb. 14….” an error of fact.
Though such errors seem to occur with more frequency these days given blogs and blogging competition to “traditional journalists” ….uh, is this a blog or a traditional journalistic endeavor?
In my U of W Journalism news writing class decades ago, an error of fact earned us a failing mark on that project. FYI, CJ Wilcox won the first POW award this year (back in Nov?). Making your statement: “….Wroten’s award is the first by any Husky player since Feb. 14….” an error of fact.
Though such errors seem to occur with more frequency these days given blogs and blogging competition to “traditional journalists” ….uh, is this a blog or a traditional journalistic endeavor?
Why is everyone acting like this has never been said before? A quick Google will tell you that hitters don’t like this park. When was the last time we had a power hitter be successful here since the steroids era ended?
Russell Branyan?
Also, please provide this easy google search that proves hitters don’t like Safeco. Quotes, etc. Since it’s easy.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ok, wait… So, Prince Fielder couldn’t hit 4 more home runs in Safeco than Russell Branyan in 2009?! Are you mental?! This is too stupid to be “damaging” or “shameful”. It’s HILARIOUS. I’m ignoring the handedness idiocy, which has been covered ad nauseum here. Miller Park Dimensions: 332-L, 390-LC, 400-C, 381-RC, 325-R… Safeco Field Dimensions: 331-L, 390-LC, 405-C,
387-RC, 327-R. Totally bro… Prince fielder would be SHUT DOWN by that extra 5 feet in dead center and those two feet in right. Killer point. I’m laughing too hard to check his hit chart, but I’ll bet ALL of his home runs in Miller Park would have been out in Safeco. They’re almost the same park! “It’s not the Egg McMuffin of hitting meccas”?! What does that even mean?! Egg McMuffins taste like a ham flavored kitchen sponge? Is that a real metaphor?! PFFFT!!! Jeff Cirillo? Seriously? Jeff FREAKING Cirillo! Do you think that perhaps the crappy hitting statistics could have anything to do with some of the worst offensive teams in the history of the sport, and PERHAPS that could be because most of the players weren’t very good? It’s nice to see you’re aware that the 2001 Mariners played at Safeco. The “gap hitting” 2001 mariners you refer to had 4 20+ home run hitters. Boone hit 37. The 2011 Milwaukee Brewers, with Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, and Rickie Weeks hit 14 more home runs as a team than the 2001 Mariners did. Dude, if you’re Prince Fielder and “your business is the long ball” and you’re looking for 8+ years at 23-25 million a year, you’re freaking SET! Baseball contracts are guaranteed and he would NOT hit less home runs at Safeco! Holy crap dude! WOW! You know, there’s a pretty good chance the Mariners do get outbid, and, there’s a really strong chance that Seattle is not the 1st choice for a Florida native… I’ve accepted that. I still check every day for news, and actually… I appreciate the utter nonsense in this article. I needed a laugh. Especially when I got to the Richie Sexson/Cecil Fielder comp. SO retarded.
Yeah but Branyan missed the final 5 weeks in 2009,with a herniated disc in his back.And lead the Mariners in ding dongs after they re aquired him in 2010,with 15 in 57 games[205 at bats]
Well put.
Okay. The research has been done. According to Rick Randall on Twitter using a hit tracker- Safeco Field would have cost Prince Fielder a total of 6 home runs over the past three seasons. Two a year. At home. Maybe. It’s pretty well common knowledge that Safeco is detrimental to right handed pull power hitters. Like the examples above. The former “Director of Research at ESPN”, ladies and gentlemen!
gentlemen, relax for a moment, and you’ll see that Rudman is correct. Good hitters come to Safeco, and they stop hitting. And i fully agree with his last comment: the Ms should look for gap hitters, not home run hitters. Also, if we sign Fielder for 10 years, he will end up being a huge albatross huge in more ways than one in the final few years of his contract. We can’t afford him the prices and years being discussed, and I hope we don’t sign him.
I’m really glad you are not the Ms GM. Right handed hitters are negatively affected by safeco. Lefties? No.
Gap hitters? That is what they have now. The lack of power has led to the worst offense in the modern era. If you think that is desirable, you don’t understand that the goal is to score more runs than the other team…not to have the lowest payroll.
Why do you think power hitters are expensive?
Because people want to win games.
It would seem with the so called porch in R.F. U would be right.But why in 12 years or so since Safeco opened,it’s Branyan who has the most h.r’s as a left handed hitter at home with 16 in 2009?And as i mentioned he missed the last 33 games that year.
It’s not the dimensions at Safeco.It’s the heavy damp air,especially at night when most of the games played there.But you guys r right,it wouldn’t affect Fielder much with his power.And not to compare Branyan with Prince,which is silly but Russell is 14th all time in h.r.frequency,with a tater every 14.9 at bats and still doesn’t have 3,000 at bats.
I’m blaming google here. I searched Prince Fielder under news. This is not news. There are some stats, but they were incorrectly applied. So there is no news and nothing worth reading.
This “news” website should truly be embarassed to have this “article” associated with it. Total garbage.
Hmmmm … and what do all those power hitters who came to the Mariners have in common? (Hint: They all bat from one side of the plate, and that side of the plate might be the opposite side of Fielder …)
Seriously folks don’t you think it’s odd that players like Kotchman (l) and Beltre (r), to name just two recent examples, are so bad at Safeco, and so good when they play in another ballpark?
Yea because Safeco Field gives people serious eye conditions when they come here and they decide that they aren’t going to get it checked out by a doctor until after they have left. Kotchman said that during his season in Seattle his vision was like “looking through a dirty windshield”. After the season he went to a doctor and the doctor said he had a eye condition that required surgery. He had the surgery and then batted 3.50 for the Rays. Yea, Safeco Field had something to do with that.
Kotchman is a singles hitting 1st sacker.See how quick another club signs him.Dime a dozen Judy hitter.Great glove though.