Tyson Walker has been named to the midseason Wooden Award watch list with 25 other stars around college basketball.
Tyson Walker is having a great season so far for the Spartans. The Michigan State senior guard is the leader of this team and has been the best and mosr consistent player through mid-January.
On Thursday afternoon, the midseason Top 25 watch list was released for the Wooden Award which goes to the best player in college basketball, and Walker was included on this list.
How does Tyson Walker stack up with the competition?
When reviewing the stats of the other 24 players included, Walker actually stacks up pretty well against the others. Looking at points per game, he is No. 4 on this list, only 2.3 points behind the leader. He also is No. 13 on this list in assists per game which isn’t the best, but his average is still in the 83rd percentile in all of college basketball.
Walker does have one thing going against him in the race for this award. More often than not, the winner of this award not only has a lot of individual success during the year, but their team also has a lot of success as well. Unfortunately, Michigan State isn’t off to a great start this year. A 9-6 (1-3) record won’t cut it if the Spartans keep that pace up.
If Walker wants to win this award he will need to continue his great statistical season and also hope our team wins more games. The Spartans still have an outside shot at winning the Big Ten, so if they were able to accomplish that then he would have an excellent shot at this award.
Tyson Walker season in review
As I mentioned, Walker has been having an excellent year. He’s averaging 20.6 points per game which is No. 16 in the country. He also is averaging 2.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game as well. He has also been extremely efficient shooting the ball at 49.1% from the floor and 41.3% from 3-point range.
The most encouraging sign for Walker as he strives for this award is that his numbers are improving recently. He’s scored at least 22 points in his last three games including 27 against Northwestern. He’s also vastly improved his assist totals as well, dishing out five assists in three of the last five games.
Statistically, I think Tyson is on track to be in serious contention for this award. Michigan State just needs to start playing better as a team to help him out. That all starts on Thursday night when the Spartans head to Illinois to take on the No. 10 Illini. A win with a huge game from Tyson would really put him on the map for this award.
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