How is this possible? Ryan Nembhard has broken an absurd amount of assist records this season and is still not being considered as one of the top point guards in the nation. He leads the country with 312 total assists, the next closest being 251 from Purdue’s Braden Smith. Only 20 other players in college basketball history have had 300+ assists in a single season.
The Bob Cousy Award is an individual honor, so team records and rankings shouldn’t be put into factor. All of the five finalists play for Top 20 programs currently. In no world should Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler be ahead of Nembhard for this honor. Nembhard has proven that he is a much better playmaker than Zeigler will ever be.
He’s averaging 10.0 assists per game to lead the country and has finished with double-digits assists 18 times this season. Nembhard’s assist-to-turnover ratio is second in the nation at 4.26 and only has turned the ball over 73 times in 31 games played.
Nembhard has put together 12 double-doubles which is tied for the 21st most in all of college basketball. He isn’t just a pass-first guard but can also stretch out the floor through his shooting stroke. The senior is averaging 10.7 points per game on a shooting split of 44.6 field goal percentage/40.7 three-point percentage/76.5 free throw percentage.
He barely leaves the floor for Gonzaga coach Mark Few and is as reliable as a leader can come. Nembhard isn’t afraid to get dirty on the defensive end and will put his body on the line. He’s tied for third in the West Coast Conference with 1.6 steals per game.
This is one of the worst snubs for the positional awards given out by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in recent memory. The West Coast Conference’s single-season assist record holder deserves an apology for being left off. This will just motivate Nembhard even more to push for a deep run in March.
Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on Twitter @a_cravalho
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