Horizon League Basketball: Early Player of the Year Candidates
By Bryan Mauro
Drew McDonald — Northern Kentucky
McDonald is the best player on a team who is currently winning the league. McDonald is a player who plays a traditional post position and can score a lot from the post. He is the scoring option and the go-to player for the Norse. McDonald is only a junior and seemingly gets better with every game and every minute in this league. He is the player that opposing coaches try to stop when playing Northern Kentucky.
The Norse have a dynamic team and have many players who can hurt you, but McDonald is the best of all of those players. If you lose sight of McDonald or think he is strictly a post player, that is when he will destroy the other teams, he doesn’t take many threes but the ones he does take he makes. He is also a great free throw shooter, so fouling him is not going to slow him down either.
The Norse are the best team in the league and are tied atop the standings with Wright State. McDonald has a great supporting cast but he is averaging 16.8 points per game to go along with 8.5 rebounds per game. He is almost averaging a double-double per game. He will have his work cut out for him if he is going to catch Kendrick Nunn, but McDonald will probably trade all of that in for a conference championship and a return trip to the NCAA tournament. If McDonald and the Norse continue their play that should be a foregone conclusion.