College basketball needs a Heisman-eqsue player of the year award

It isn’t difficult to make the case that the Heisman Trophy is the most prestigious individual award in American sports. The distinction is the center of a year-round conversation that culminates with a two-hour presentation ceremony from New York that is hyped up and broadcast nationally by ESPN. Diehard and casual sports fans alike know the pose, they know the winners, and they know some one the big names who didn’t get a chance to hoist the trophy and give a speech from the Downtown Athletic Club.

Having said all this, it’s difficult to understand why college basketball — America’s second-most popular amateur sport — doesn’t have a decoration that is at least mildly comparable to the Heisman.

Even college baseball has the Golden Spikes Award, an honor that has, over time, risen above the hoard of other national player of the year awards associated with the sport. In basketball, there are currently six (previously seven) major national player of the year awards handed out on an annual basis, and while fans may be more familiar with some than others, no single award takes clear precedence above the others.

Since the turn of the century, 10 of the last 17 college hoops seasons have failed to produce a consensus national player of the year. We loved following and still love reminiscing about the memorable two-horse races between Denzel Valentine and Buddy Hield a couple years ago and between Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick in 2004-05. Ask us how it all turned out and we don’t have an answer for you. That’s because there isn’t a clear answer to give. Redick and Morrison shared both the Oscar Robertson and NABC Player of the Year awards. Hield took home the Wooden and Naismith awards, while Valentine was named the sport’s top performer by both the NABC and the Associated Press.

The sad fact is that the prime function college basketball’s mythical national player of the year award serves is as an in-season debate piece. We discuss the “player of the year race” as if the road will end with some grand, satisfying conclusion. We debate the candidates from day one of the season through the first Monday in April, but there’s never a “this is the night we find out” crescendo. In fact, the number of people who can tell you when the various player of the year awards are announced are likely limited to the same number who can tell you all the teams in the Horizon and Summit leagues. Even they might get a little confused if you put them on the spot.

The AP Player of the Year award is handed out just before the Final Four. The Naismith Award is announced during the Final Four. The Wooden Award gets presented after the Final Four. Those previously unaware of these facts have a more-than-valid excuse. There are no television specials for these awards, no round-the-clock media attention devoted to who is going to win. The announcements are made in the shadow of a much larger event, and wind up falling into the same pile of clutter that includes spring coaching firings and early NBA draft declarations.

College basketball’s current player of the year setup is confusing, and that confusion has resulted in disinterest. Perhaps not when it comes to in-season discussion of a non-existent singular honor, but as far as the outcome of the actual awards and their lasting memory are concerned, there is a notable lack of awareness. Even the average sports fan who prefers the hardwood to the gridiron is more likely to be able to recite the names of the last five Heisman Trophy winners than the last five Wooden/Naismith/AP/Whatever award winners.

So what’s the fix here? Unification? Convincing five of the awards to gracefully bow out? The creation of a new, super award? None of those ideas seem likely to sprout to existence, which leaves only the NCAA, college basketball fans, and college basketball media coming together to tout one of the six awards as superior to its brethren. How exactly to make that happen is a separate issue entirely, but some sort of televised special on a major network would seem to be a productive first step.

All this may seem trivial, but college basketball has more of a problem with star power than any other major sport in America. The establishing of a supreme individual honor that demands both in-season and preseason conversation as well as a satisfying crescendo wouldn’t solve the problem entirely, but it would certainly help.