I recently ran across an interesting Rush the Court piece that talked about this seasons National Player of the Year Race. In the piece there was a little poll, and although I'm not entirely sure how credible the voters were, as in I'm not sure if they are actual voters who would indeed be deciding the NPOY race or were just random journalists that were asked to participate, but nevertheless, the results of the poll I found are located below. Keep in mind that this is an early list, but as you can see, both Wall and Cousins are represented for our Wildcats.
The above list is interesting and I wasn't so surprised by these early results, but rather by something that the Rush the Court writer mentions in the accompanying article. He basically points out that with DeMarcus Cousins being in the mix for NPOY, and if he continues to play the way he has been playing it only makes perfect sense that he will garner more and more votes as the season comes to a close, but by doing so, he might very well be taking away votes that would otherwise have gone to John Wall who at present is clearly in serious contention for the honor and as a result in Cousins garnering those votes, it could in fact be assisting Evan Turner. Really?
I suppose the same thing could be said for the two Kansas players that are represented in the above poll (Aldrich and Collins), but to be honest the above scenario is not something I had ever thought about before. I don't know for sure if it's all that likely, or that it will actually happen, and maybe you all aren't startled by this, but I found it possible and it definitely peaked my interest.
I can't image that it's all that common that teammates are seriously considered for the NPOY award and I'm sure that in the coming weeks the race will tighten up and the front-runner(s) will become more clear, and who knows, the current leaders could falter and the race could blow wide open allowing one of the players toward the bottom of the list to emerge as the favorite.
I know that NPOY is just an award and it's not really a measure of what one has meant to their respective programs or a measure of what one will do going forward in their basketball career, but I'm fairly certain that winning the award means a whole lot to the players who are in contention and never in my wildest dreams did I consider it to be a possible detriment to have two of our Wildcats in the running for National Player of the Year.