Duncan Goes Out Winner of Wooden

Wake Forest center Tim Duncan won the 21st annual John R. Wooden Award on Friday in ceremonies at the Los Angeles Athletic Club that pleased no one more than John R. Wooden.

The former legendary UCLA coach, for whom the college basketball player of the year award is named, beamed at Duncan’s selection.

“I’ve always wanted it to go to a graduating senior,” Wooden, 86, said.

The concept has become passe in college basketball, where the best players are usually enticed to the NBA before completing their eligibility.

In Duncan, the Wooden Award got the complete package. Not only was he by far the most outstanding player this season, averaging 20.8 points and 14.7 rebounds for the Deamon Deacons (24-7), he spurned the chance to become an NBA lottery pick after his sophomore and junior seasons.

“That took a great deal of courage to make that decision,” Wake Forest Coach Dave Odom said.

Duncan expects to graduate in May with a degree in psychology, fulfilling a promise to his mother, Iona, who died six years ago of breast cancer.

“It’s an honor to get all these awards,” Duncan said. “But my crowning achievement will be when I graduate.”

Duncan finished with 4,764 points in votes cast by national sportscasters and sportswriters. Utah senior forward Keith Van Horn was second in the voting with 4,017 points, followed by Kansas junior center Raef LaFrentz (2,870), sophomore Kentucky forward Ron Mercer (2,840) and Kansas senior guard Jacque Vaughn (1,956).

Of this year’s five Wooden Award finalists, Duncan, Van Horn and Vaughn postponed NBA careers to play their senior seasons.

They will be remembered for helping a college game that has been diminished by NBA defections in recent years.

“I think the college game would be just as successful without us, “ Van Horn said, “but hopefully we made it a little better this year.”

By returning, Van Horn was able to complete a remarkable career, highlighted by his stunning performance in the Western Athletic Conference tournament, in which he won consecutive games on last-second shots.

Utah also advanced to the Final Eight in the NCAA tournament before losing to Kentucky. Van Horn averaged 22 points and 9.5 rebounds per game and leaves as the WAC’s all-time leading scorer.

Vaughn’s decision to return was bittersweet. He missed the Jayhawks’ first 10 games because of a wrist injury and then suffered the ignominy of No. 1 Kansas’ stunning loss to Arizona in the Southeast Regional semifinals.

Yet Vaughn, who carries a 3.72 grade-point average in business administration, said he has never regretted his decision.

“The experiences I gained, the relationships, the friends, the sense of accomplishment, graduating with a business degree, those are things you can’t trade,” he said.

The only disappointment of the night was the absence of finalist Ron Mercer and his coach, Rick Pitino.

“They told us Coach Pitino had a book-signing engagement and that the player had gone home,” Duke Llewellyn, Wooden Award Chairman, said.

Llewellyn said he planned on speaking with Kentucky Athletic Director C.M. Newton to get a more detailed explanation.

Wooden clearly could not have been happier for those finalists who did show.

He says Duncan reminds him a bit of his first franchise player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor.

“Consistent, not flashy, yes,” Wooden said of the comparison. “They don’t have the peaks and valleys that many of them have. That’s always what I taught.”

Asked if Duncan could have played for him, Wooden said: “He would fit in with anyone, with any style.”

The night also marked the end of an era for Odom, the Wake Forest coach, who discovered Duncan in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, after getting a tip from a former player.

“You get one player like this in your lifetime,” Odom said.