Cameron Boozer was at the center of everything for the Duke men’s basketball team this season.
The 6-foot-9, 250-pound forward proved tough enough to score through physical play. Rangy enough to space the floor and shoot from outside. Deft enough as a passer to find teammates, whether against constant double teams coming for him as the top name on every scouting report or while running the entire offense from up top.
“You just want to affect winning,” Boozer said, “in whatever way you can.”
The highly rated NBA prospect did that all season for a team that won 35 games, reached No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll, received the top overall seed for the NCAA Division I tournament and reached Elite Eight round before being done in by the University of Connecticut’s big rally and last-second 3-pointer. Now he’s The Associated Press men’s college basketball player of the year, only the fifth freshman to earn the honor but the second in a row for the Blue Devils, who keep adding to the longest list of winners in the country.
“It just goes to show more about what our team has done, just because I think that really helps awards like this, having great team success,” Boozer told the AP. “It’s really just not me.”