Saint Louis Basketball: Yuri Collins Cousy Award snub is unacceptable

The 10 nominees for this season’s Bob Cousy Award list came out, and somehow Yuri Collins of Saint Louis Basketball failed to make the cut.

Every year, NCAA Basketball periodically releases lists of the best players at each traditional position that are up for awards at the end of the season. One of them is the Bob Cousy Award, named for the best point guard in the country. 10 players made the most recent cut.

There are some worthy players among this group, including the starters of the No. 1 and 2 teams in the country (Wendell Green of Auburn and Andrew Nembhard of Gonzaga), along with national champion Collin Gillespie of Villanova. Kennedy Chandler of Tennessee is the lone freshman of the group, while Isaiah Stevens of Colorado State represents the mid-majors on this list.

But while there were worthy candidates here, I have to take offense with the exclusion of Yuri Collins of Saint Louis. The junior point guard not only leads the Atlantic 10 in assists at 8.4 apg and 167 total overall, but those numbers are good for No. 1 in the nation. He’s always been a quality passer, averaging 5.5 and 6.4 apg in his first two years of the season.

But the gaudy numbers don’t tell the entire story for Collins. Before the start of the season, Saint Louis Basketball lost last season’s leading scorer Javonte Perkins for all of the 2021-22 campaign. That’s over 16 ppg of production gone for a team that had NCAA Tournament aspirations. That forced everyone to step up, including Collins himself.

Before this season, the 6’0 playmaker was averaging just 5.2 ppg and took fewer than five shots a night. So far this season that has doubled to 10.3 ppg on 43% shooting from the field. That includes a career-high 24 points in a big win over Richmond, with 14 double-figure scoring games out of 20. Collins also had a program-record 19 assists against Boston College and was close several times to landing a triple-double in a game.

On the season, the Billikens have a record of 14-6 and 5-2 in Atlantic 10 play. They’re right in the NCAA Tournament mix, something that wasn’t expected once Perkins went down for the season. Collins has played a giant role in the team’s success and doesn’t have All-American teammates around him.

I was at Saint Louis’ last game at Duquesne and it was highly impressive how Collins initiated the offense. He constantly found the open man and placed the ball almost perfectly to his teammates. A perfect example is how he handed Tre Williams, one of the best individual frontcourt defenders in the A-10 for the Dukes. But he had no chance against Collins’ precision passing, who placed the ball to Francis Okoro for several dunks down low that was simply unguardable.

Because of how high his usage rate is for Saint Louis, Yuri Collins does have a good amount of turnovers on the season. But if that was the reason for his exclusion from the list, that just doesn’t cut it for me.

The Bob Cousy Award is supposed to be for the best point guards in the country. And regardless of the current assist numbers, Collins deserves to be included because he has truly been one of the very best point guards in the country. The fact that he has somehow negated the absence of Perkins is one of the most impressive feats of the season and the Billikens very well could go to the NCAA Tournament, thanks to the elite passing and playmaking of the 6’0 guard.