#HLMBB Awards — Week 10

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Photo courtesy pf Purdue Fort Wayne Athletics

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After a recent conversation on Twitter about the league’s apparent unwritten rules when it comes to naming Player of the Week — most importantly, that a team probably has to go 2-0 for its player to be a contender for the award unless a record-setting perofrmance is in play — I decided to dive deeper into my thoughts on Player of the Week. While I will typically side with the way the league usually likes players who’ve played multiple games, I also want to acknowledge that wins and losses don’t necessarily dictate which individual player had the best week.

Part of the league’s job is probably to not acknowledge it, but sometimes parity doesn’t exist in Horizon League play. It’s less of an issue this season, but a pair of home games against Detroit Mercy and the artist formerly known as IUPUI last season doesn’t even compare to a road trip that featured Oakland and Youngstown State. One will likely result in a 2-0 week while the other won’t, and even a less extreme Strength of Schedule split shouldn’t arbitrarily eliminate a player on that road trip from winning Player of the Week.

This week was an interesting one, with only a few POTW-worthy performances and some interesting circumstances surrounding them. Despite everything I just said I did end up bumping a player from consideration for Player of the Week due to team results, but the games weren’t even competitive. As a result, the league’s most impressive performances both came from a pair of teammates. I had to dive even deeper into my Player of the Week philosophy, choosing Purdue Fort Wayne’s Rasheed Bello over fellow Mastodon Jalen Jackson for this week’s award.

Without further ado, here are my picks for Horizon League Men’s Basketball Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week:

Player of the Week — Rasheed Bello, Purdue Fort Wayne

The Purdue Fort Wayne star averaged 24.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game while hitting over half his shots from the field. Scoring isn’t everything, but in a week where only five other players eclipsed 20 points in a game — and two of them were Bello’s teammates — Bello did it twice. I do also prefer to give the player that I think outperformed expectations the most in the event of a tough decision. While I came into the year higher on Bello than his teammate, I have Jalen Jackson in mind for a bigger award right now. Just for good measure the Mastodons also pleased the league and went 2-0, staving off Milwaukee in the standings on Wednesday before blowing out a freshman-heavy Detroit Mercy on Saturday.

Other contenders

Jalen Jackson, Purdue Fort Wayne — if Bello doesn’t win it, the main contender I could see stealing the weekly award from him is his own teammate. Jackson averaged 22.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game for the week. Just looking at those averages, it’d be completely understandable that Jackson would get the nod. His scoring was a step behind Bello’s, but his other stats look great. I would point out that all six of the assists came against the injury-riddled Detroit Mercy team that was starting 5 freshmen. With all of that said, I’m picking his teammate but Jackson would be a very good Player of the Week pick.

Freshman of the Week — Grant Gondrezick, Detroit Mercy

The all-around impressive week from Gondrezick might’ve earned mention above above, but Detroit Mercy losing by an average of 27.5 points through the two games is where I have to side with the league and say team results matter. Nonetheless, Gondrezick was more than impressive enough to warrant Freshman of the Week. While he was one of the five players I talked about in the Bello blurb who hit 20 points in a game, I almost think the fact that he had five of Detroit Mercy’s nine assists against IU Indy and a positive assist-to-turnover ratio when nobody else managed to score 10 points is a more impressive feat. Despite the margin of defeat, Gondrezick had an extremely impressive week and gets the nod for the league’s top freshman this week.

Other contenders

Je’Shawn Stevenson, Cleveland State — Stevenson continued his ultra-impressive freshman year with a pair of efficient 14-point outings that helped Cleveland State to a pair of wins. His 14.0 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.5 assists per game this week helped raise his averages across the board on the season. CSU’s undefeated week and Stevenson’s momentum of winning four of the last five Freshman of the Week awards could give him the nod over a player who was on the losing end of two blowouts, but I’m going with Gondrezick this week.

DeSean Goode, IU Indianapolis — Goode only played one game this week, which I do think matters as what eliminates players from this award is a dud in a second game. Still, it was the blowout win over Detroit Mercy and I did at least want to mention the performance he had. The forward scored 15 points on 7-for-10 shooting, grabbed 13 rebounds, and dished out 3 assists without turning the ball over. While he wasn’t the Jaguars’ top offensive threat, failing to find a way to handle Goode’s all-around game was a big contributor to what could’ve been worse than a 34-point beatdown before Paul Corsaro put in the reserves with eight minutes to play.

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