Simmons Wins Wooden Award in a Landslide

Lionel Simmons of La Salle, a 6-foot-6 jack of all trades who apparently has mastered the art of collecting postseason awards, picked up the John R. Wooden Award Wednesday as the outstanding player in college basketball.

Simmons was a runaway choice for the Wooden Award, which he received in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. A consensus All-American forward, Simmons received 1,174 points in a polling of 1,000 writers and broadcasters nationwide. Oregon State’s Gary Payton was second with 831 points and Derrick Coleman of Syracuse was third with 816.

“I’m very honored to have won this prestigious award,” Simmons said. “But I’m having a little trouble believing I did.”

Simmons should be accustomed to receiving honors after a senior season in which he averaged 26 points and 11 rebounds and led the Explorers to a 30-2 record. Simmons has been named player of the year by the AP, UPI and the Basketball Writers Assn., and he will fly to Atlanta today to accept the James Naismith player-of-the-year award. And he will travel to New York next week, where he will be named Eastman Kodak player of the year.

“There are players better at doing certain things than Lionel,” La Salle Coach William (Speedy) Morris said. “Derrick Coleman is a better rebounder. Chris Jackson is a better scorer. But I don’t know anyone who contributed more all-around to a team than he has.”

Hank Gathers of Loyola Marymount was fourth in the voting, which continued until March 26, more than three weeks after his death. Junior forward Larry Johnson of NCAA champion Nevada Las Vegas was fifth and LSU sophomore Jackson was sixth.

Johnson reaffirmed his intention to remain in school Wednesday but Jackson plans to make himself available for the NBA draft in June.

Simmons is certain to be a first-round draft choice and expects to be selected anywhere from No. 5 to No. 10. During his career at La Salle, a small Christian Brothers school in northwest Philadelphia, Simmons scored 3,217 points and became the third-leading scorer in NCAA history, behind Pete Maravich and Freeman Williams.

Even in light of his weighty statistics, Simmons acknowledged that voters made a difficult decision.

“I don’t see how anyone can decide who to give the award to,” he said. “I mean, I’m sitting here next to a guy whose team won the national championship (Johnson), the next No. 1 pick in the NBA draft (Coleman) and a shooter like Chris Jackson. And I still won. It has me puzzled. It has me boggled.”

Loyola Marymount Coach Paul Westhead had less trouble focusing, possibly because he survived a face-to-face showdown with La Salle. Until Clemson defeated La Salle in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Loyola was the only team to beat the Explorers. Simmons had 34 points and 19 rebounds in a 121-116 loss to Westhead’s Lions.

“He probably epitomizes the all-purpose player who does everything,” Westhead said. “He’s not a specialist, just a basketball player. Larry Johnson is probably the best player in the game today from five feet in. Lionel does that too, but Johnson is the master of it.”

Johnson, whose ultimate arrival in the NBA is greatly anticipated by talent scouts, said he was not disappointed at finishing fifth in a six-player field.

“I don’t even know why I was up there,” Johnson said. “I think (UNLV teammate) Stacey Augmon should have been there instead of me. The team was the story, not me.”