He was on the cover of every sports magazine known to man. He was asked to campaign for presidential contender Bill Bradley and to testify in front of Congress. He was named as a member of the college select team that played and practiced against the U.S. Olympic Dream Team before it ventured to Sydney to win a gold medal.
In short, he was the posterboy of college basketball, the NCAA's most respected student-athlete, and of course, everybody's pick for national player of the year. And while Shane Battier has lived up to virtually all of the high expectations that college basketball aficionados set for him before the season, he should not receive player-of-the-year honors nationally or in the ACC. The reason is simple: his teammate, sophomore point guard Jason Williams, is more deserving.
Both Battier and Williams have viable claims for being named player of the year. Both have put up huge numbers offensively, have proven to be among the best defensive players at their position and have represented their university with class, grace and dignity. But there are two things that set Williams apart from his elder teammate.
First, while their statistical contributions have been nearly identical, only Williams has exceeded the expectations set forth for him at the beginning of the season. Let's face it, Battier was everybody's choice for player of the year at the start and Williams was basically an afterthought in this competition. Sure, people knew that the explosive point guard had improved his shooting over the summer and that he had worked on his ball control by competing against the Dream Teamers on the same select team as Battier. Regardless, few would have even mentioned the New Jersey native in the same breath as his almost-godlike teammate.
But as the season has played out, Williams has proven to be one of the most dangerous players in college basketball, silencing the critics who said he was too athletically gifted for his own good-minus his 10-turnover, out-of-control performance against Maryland. He has demonstrated that he can just as easily knock down a deep trifecta as he can penetrate and sky for a dunk. Williams has displayed a confidence to slow his team down when necessary and to crank up the tempo when the Blue Devils need to go on a run. And most importantly, he has known when he needs to score and when he should dish the ball to his skillful teammates.
This ability to make correct decisions on a continual and sometimes split-second basis brings me to my second point: Williams has been the player that Duke has depended upon most in the clutch. For instance, while Battier carried the Blue Devils in overtime against the Terrapins a few weeks ago, it was Williams who almost single-handedly gave the senior a chance to do so by scoring eight points in the final minute of regulation to send the game into an extra period. And even in Duke's two losses, Williams has been a much more reliable player down the stretch, as he nailed a key three-pointer to keep the Blue Devils alive against Carolina and was there to take the final shot against Stanford, a layup that barely rimmed out.
Meanwhile, Battier played solid defense in both of those contests, but when it really counted, he was not there to propel his team to victory. The Birmingham, Mich., native fouled out with two minutes remaining against the Cardinal and committed the fatal end-of-game foul that permitted UNC's Brendan Haywood to secure a Tar Heel victory from the charity stripe.
By pointing out these mistakes, I don't mean to imply that Battier has been a disappointment on any level this season. In fact, to the contrary, Battier has been nothing short of magnificent. From a leadership standpoint, he has been the glue that has kept the Blue Devils together. From a performance standpoint, he has continued to place among the league leaders in scoring, rebounding, blocks, steals and three-point shooting percentages; he even broke Duke's record for three-pointers in a game by hitting nine against Princeton. And at one point, he reached a moment of Zen when he scorched Georgia Tech for 20 consecutive points during the second half of Duke's Jan. 20 victory over the Yellow Jackets.
Despite these impressive feats, though, my money is still on Williams for player of the year. Unfortunately, the sensational sophomore and his coach disagree with me on the issue.
Mike Krzyzewski came out firmly in support of Battier during his news conference before the Duke-North Carolina affair and Williams told the News & Observer yesterday that "Shane should be the winner."
However, Williams was a little more non-committal when I talked to him Sunday about his prospects.
"It really doesn't matter to me who gets the award," Williams said. "The biggest thing is that, at the end, we come out as the winner. I think if we win it all... then a lot of the personal accolades will just happen by themselves. It's not something that we sit back and worry about now, but it's something we use to inspire us."
Regardless of who wins the awards-and it might be North Carolina's stellar shooting guard Joseph Forte-it's safe to say that the friendly competition between Battier and Williams for player-of-the-year honors has been, and will continue to be, extremely beneficial for the Blue Devils. The two have used the competition to push each other in practice and in games, which will make them both better in the postseason.
So no matter who you think deserves the award, the residue of this amicable, yet intense competition will hopefully benefit all Duke fans during the Big Dance in March. Who knows, maybe it will even be the decisive factor in whether or not the Blue Devils are able to cut down the nets in Minneapolis.
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