One has facial hair like he’s still in 8^th grade, the other one just writes poetry like it.  But Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick are running away in this year’s college basketball player of the year race.  The consensus among sportswriters nationwide is that these two shooters have been so impressive that no one else is likely to do enough during conference play to overtake Morrison or Redick for the POY.  Naturally, one writer disagrees.

There are plenty of other guys out there who deserve a look and aren’t getting one because the two aforementioned gunners have been putting up headlines like they were transition 3s.  Let’s have a look at some boys around the country that hope to make some noise in the next two months for their shot at the Wooden.

Randy Foye: Villanova hasn’t had much of a team to cheer for since the days of Kerry Kittles, but the Cats nearly upset eventual champion UNC last year in the sweet 16, and could go deeper in March this year.  The reason? Foye, a two-guard that’s aggressive, gritty, and athletic, not to mention leading ‘Nova in scoring and rebounding.  He has a scoring average over 20 ppg, but what makes him even more valuable to his team is his work on the other side of the floor.  Many NBA scouts have called Foye the best perimeter defender in the country, which naturally could only hurt his POY candidacy.  Nobody outside of Jay Bilas generally notices it when college players play defense, but you’ll notice that common theme running through several of the candidates I pick. I want a guy who can create his own shot on one end and lock down a team’s best shooter on the other.  Foye fills up a stat sheet top to bottom, averaging 3.4 assists, 1.3 steals and nearly a block per game.  In the best conference in the country this year, if Villanova continues to take down ranked opponents, Foye’s stock in this race could only rise.

Brandon Roy: Nobody, and I mean nobody knows about Roy outside of the pacific northwest.  America, meet the best player on the country’s fastest team, Washington.  Everyone took their eyes off the Huskies when Nate Robinson graduated to the NBA, but U-dub has another explosive guard in Roy.  A stat-stuffing senior, Roy has made huge strides in his game this year in leading Washington to the quietest 14-2 record in the nation.  He’s scoring 19 points a game, pulls down 5 boards per, and adds 4 assists and a steal and block apiece.  He used to get knocked for not being able to hit from long range, but his 3-point shooting jumped to 49 percent this year (up from 35 his jr. year) and he comes up biggest in the games he’s needed most.  After getting burned by Adam Morrison for 43 points Dec. 4^th (in a 99-95 Husky win, however), Roy has been unstoppable, averaging 26 ppg in Pac-10 play, including a 35-point 11-board performance against Arizona, one of the most athletic teams in the country.  Washington doesn’t look like it will lose many more, and Roy will be hard to ignore if he leads the Huskies into the top 5… or even the top 3.

Rulon Carney: Memphis deserves a lot of credit for one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country, and Carney deserves a lot of credit for getting them out of it with only two losses (Duke, Texas).  A 6-7 forward who can knock down the 3, scouts have been drooling over Carney’s potential forever but he’s disappeared for long stretches in previous years.  So far, he’s been able to avoid that, keeping his scoring average consistently around 18 points per game while becoming a shutdown defender for the Tigers.  He managed to hold JJ Redick to his lowest point total of the season in their preseason NIT showdown; Redick took just nine shots the whole game and finished with 15 points.  Carney also gives fans a chance to wet their pants every time he gets out in the open court since he can absolutely jump out of the gym (he was a state champ high jumper and the son of two track stars).  Memphis should have absolutely no competition in Conference USA, which means Carney will not have many more high-profile matchups, but his early season performance warrants mentioning.

Shelden Williams: How’s this for an idea; JJ Redick isn’t even the most valuable player on his own team! That’s right, I think the Landlord (not sure if there’s a lamer nickname in basketball right now) holds a bigger key to Duke winning it all than Redick does.  Triple-doubles don’t happen very often in college basketball, but Williams posted an impressive 19-point, 11-board, 10-block performance against Maryland (a ranked team, by the way).  He averages nearly four blocks per game and intimidates opponents in a manner of importance that can’t be measured.  I can’t imagine Duke (or Redick, for that matter) being the powerhouse that they are this year without Williams, which I’m not sure is a statement I can make about JJ.  The ACC isn’t as strong as last year but it still features some big scorers and several talented and tough big men that will test the Landlord’s lease in the paint (wow, that was bad…) including Wake’s Eric Williams, BC’s Craig Smith, and UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough.  If Shelden can turn in shut-down performances against the rest of his conference while JJ perhaps struggles against a few teams that will key on him, he could move past his teammate in the MVP race.

Rudy Gay: Will the real Rudy Gay please stand up?! Rudy, scouts have been talking about how good you are for two years, but in those two years you’ve scored over 20 in a single game only THREE TIMES.  I’ve seen the disgusting windmill on Sportscenter, the soft touch over a bigger defender, but I’ve also seen the tendency to fade into the background on certain occasions (see 6 points vs. Arizona on Nov. 22) and the hesitancy to take over games.  Rudy, do you know how good you are?? Please, please hog the ball sometimes and put on a one-man show that will make people sit up and take notice.  You are disgusting. I know it.  Adam Morrison and Gonzaga, who you somehow only tallied 10 points and 2 rebounds against despite the fact that you are 6-9, know it.  Now I want the rest of the country to know it.  You have the best shot of anybody that I have listed in this column to make a run at the Wooden and I am basing that solely on your talent alone.  Rudy, in your final 13 games, you will be playing 8 ranked teams… EIGHT!! You will have a chance to have a new poster of you made every week dunking on such opponents as Taquan Dean (Louisville), Kevin Pittsnogle (W.Va), Carl Krauser (Pitt), and, if you are really mean, Gerry MacNamara (Syracuse).  Please, please do it.  If UConn wins most or all of these games and you score, say, 30 points in 2 or 3 of them, your name will be right there with Morrison and Redick. 

Someone, anyone, please.  Randy, Brandon, Rudy… you’ve got to help me.  We can’t have a guy who writes poetry winning college basketball’s MVP? We can’t have the player of the year be a guy who waxes eloquent about Adam Smith but can’t wax his own ‘stache!  Help me end these two’s Wooden hopes: take over your conference.

Zeke Smith is a senior editor at ASM and a lead writer at CarolinaBlue.com covering North Carolina and the rest of the ACC.  You can reach him at zeke.smith@atomicsportsmedia.com