A call for Kemba

This year’s NCAA tournament turned out to be one of the most interesting tournaments of all times for several reasons. To start, as always around 6pm on selection Sunday, the great debates start, who should have gotten in, and what schools lucked up and received gifts by receiving bids. Adding 6 extra teams not only made this year’s debates more interesting, but also more intriguing. The NCAA decided to add an 11^th and 12^th seed play in game. Many felt that this was extremely unfair as why would a seed as high as 11^th or 12^th should have to play this extra game. As most people, including myself believed this was just a way of drumming up more revenue by adding extra game, no one would have imaged that one of the teams from this “added tournament”(VCU) would be a participant in this year’s Final Four. But the real story in this year’s tournament came from the likes of Kemba Walker and Jimmer Fredette, they darlings of this year’s tournament.

As both had excellent years, it was Jimmer that received the AP 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball player of the year. Kemba, even after leading his team to the championship, has never received the accolade that his counterpart has received. Agile, and discipline are just a few of the glowing descriptions that Jimmer has been given, whereas Kemba has been described as tenacious, fiery and quick like a fox. As both athletes are great and contribute a great deal to the sport, I just see Jimmers attributes as one of a settled well rounded athlete where as Kemba could be perceived as a caged man just waiting to unleash a wrath of terror on his subjects. Now I am not knocking Jimmer’s abilities or accomplishments that he displayed this year, but the year does not stop once we get to March Madness. This is the time that the “player of the year” really needs to turn it on. Kemba lead his team to an unprecedented 5 games in the Big East tournament, then took part in the West Region of the tournament and won 4 games, only to cap it off by winning two more in Houston, to win this year’s championship.

I think the NCAA and other sports venues, feel the need to push Whites in sports that seem to be dominated by African-Americans. We have seen the battle many times and in several sports, Bird-Magic, Tiger (and he is questionable on whatever race he wishes to call himself) - Couples, Bonds-McGwire, and the list could go on and on. Kemba led a team that going into the Big East tournament had a 9-9 record in one of the best leagues in the NCAA, loser of 4 of the last 5 regular season games, and was too many on the bubble to get into this year’s field. They shocked most of the sports world by not only winning the big dance, but winning it the way they did. Their team was saturated with underclassman, and to get the job done someone had to step up, and Kemba Walker was the man that did. He single handed, carried the Huskies through the Big East Tournament (scored a record 130 points and played 190 out of 205 minutes) and consistently kept his team focused in rout to cutting down the net on April 4 after a 53-41 win over Butler. This to me is what not only make a champion, but are the attributes needed to crown the AP Player of the Year.