College Basketball: Busting Brackets Midseason Awards

Breakout Player

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

Rakeem Christmas, Syracuse

Last year, Syracuse raced out to an undefeated record and a #1 ranking that saw them as a national title favorite in February. However, much of the individual buzz centered around the wizardry of freshman point guard Tyler Ennis. It was a familiar narrative for Rakeem Christmas to be overshadowed. He had formed a niche as a rugged post player whose biggest contributions didn’t show up in the box score.

That finally changed this year. After failing to score more than six points per game in any of his first three seasons, Christmas has finally made the transition from role player to star player, and it’s scary to think of where the Orange would be without him coming out of his shell by averaging 18 points and 8.9 boards this season. Quietly, his stats are nearly identical to player of the year candidate Jahlil Okafor.

I had originally tabbed Christmas as the winner of the Unsung Hero award (which I decided to absolve rather than double-book Christmas), but upon further research, no one fits the bill of breaking out more than the unanimous most glaring snub from the mid-season Wooden Watch List. Part of the reason why we’ve overlooked Christmas is because of the Orange’s pedestrian record, but it’s important to realize that Christmas’ development has been the factor that has kept the Orange from falling into a full rebuild mode.

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