The Duke Blue Devils freshman Cooper Flagg and the Auburn Tigers fifth-year senior Johni Broome are going neck and neck in the race to receive the season’s best player honors. Both players have been achieving success as individual players as well as for their respective teams, leading to a tight race for the National Player of the Year award.
College basketball analyst Jeff Goodman sees the race going down as one of the most highly touted finishes for an award ever. He said as much on Tuesday’s episode of “The Goodman and Hummel Basketball Podcast.”
“The biggest award, I think the most controversial award we’re going to see this year, although I think National Player of the Year and Coach of the Year are going to be controversial because for Player of the Year, it’s a two-horse race,” Goodman said. “It’s been a two-horse race here for, honestly, a couple of months.
“Kam Jones was a part of it for a while, Braden Smith was a part of it for a minute, I thought. But, it’s really been Cooper Flagg and Johni Broome, the whole season for the most part. … Johni Broome, almost 18-and-a-half points, almost 11 rebounds a game, three-and-a-half assists a game, two-and-a-half blocks a game for the No. 1 team in the country.
“Then, you got Cooper Flagg, the young kid. Johni’s a fifth-year senior, Cooper Flagg is a kid who came in [at] 17 years old as a freshman, averaging 19-and-a-half points, seven-and-a-half rebounds, four assists, a steal-and-a-half and a block-and-a-half. They’ve both been ridiculous. Not good, ridiculous. So, it’s splitting hairs.”
Goodman said that the best thing to do is to just have both Cooper Flagg and Johni Broome share the National Player of the Year honor as co-awardees.
Jeff Goodman suggests having Cooper Flagg and Johni Broome as NPOY co-awardees this season
The race for the National Player of the Year award between Cooper Flagg and Johni Broome should end soon. Teams across all conferences are almost done playing their regular-season games to move to the postseason, with Flagg and Broome’s squads on top of the ranks.
Instead of having one winner to take the award, college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman suggested that there be two co-winners.
“I said, ‘You (Broome) were the leader early. Then, you got hurt.’ I thought that kind of Cooper took over a little bit and took a little bit of a lead. Now, I think it’s neck and neck, I really do. It’s almost like, honestly, I hate doing this, it’s the ultimate copout and I’m not gonna do it. But, the copout is co-Player of the Year,” Goodman said. “Can you do it?”
Flagg and Broome’s respective final regular season game will both be contested on Saturday, with the Duke Blue Devils taking on the unranked UNC Tar Heels and the Auburn Tigers facing the seventh-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide.
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