NCAA Basketball: Dwayne Cohill, Kris Murray among Players of the Week
By Bryan Mauro
Mid-major Player of the Week – Yuri Collins
In what turned out to be a very tight race between Cohill, Sharp, and Collins. The winner this week is going to come from the Atlantic 10 conference by way of the Saint Louis Billikens. Collins week was hard to overlook. Sharp had back-to-back 30-point games, and no disrespect at all to Sharp but back-to-back 30-point games has been done already this year and will likely be done again in the near future. Sharp had a tremendous week but there were players who had better weeks. Cohill was a very close second and that 43-point game is likely going to stand for a while as the top-scoring game in the country. Collins was still better.
There will be numerous 30-point games and there have already been three 40-point games this season. Go out and look back through the annals of the history books and find me how many 20-assist games there have been. There is not likely to be another 20-assist game this season unless it is by Collins. Just to put this further into perspective. Collins out-assisted most of the teams in the NCAA by himself. 20 assists as a team in a game would be wonderful offense and would likely mean your team won going away. This was by one guy.
Cameron Parker was the last to get 20 assists in a game but those were both against non-Division 1 opponents. The last time it was done against a division 1 opponent was in 2017 when Trae Young accomplished the feat against Northwestern State.
20 assists are likely not going to be done again this year and if it is that player will likely be the player of the week. Saint Louis is as good as they are because Collins can do the things he can do. It doesn’t hurt that he has two of the better offensive players in the Atlantic 10 either. A season ago when one of the stars for the Billikens, Javonte Perkins, was injured in preseason Collins was able to step up and pick up his scoring. The point guard will and can score when he needs to or must, but he is a pass-first, low-turnover, high-basketball IQ point guard. If you have not yet, please watch Saint Louis play. Collins is the best point guard in the country.