LSU freshman Ben Simmons ineligible for prestigious Wooden Award

LSU freshman Ben Simmons is clearly one of the best players in the nation this season and the likely top pick in the NBA draft this summer, but he is not eligible for one of college basketball’s most prestigious awards.

Simmons was not among the 15 candidates announced Saturday for the John R. Wooden Award because LSU did not certify his eligibility for the award. According to a report by Jeff Goodman at ESPN, the school couldn’t certify Simmons’ eligibility for academic reasons. 

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It’s possible for a player to be eligible to play and ineligible for the award because the standards for each are different.

The only academic requirement the Wooden Award has for eligibility are that a student-athlete “must have a cumulative 2.00 grade point average since enrolling in their current university.” By comparison, the NCAA grade-point average requirements to remain eligible are:

Student-athletes must achieve 90 percent of the institution’s minimum overall grade-point average necessary to graduate (for example, 1.8) by the beginning of year two, 95 percent of the minimum GPA (1.9) by year three and 100 percent (2.0) by year four.

 

So it seems Simmons achieved at least a 1.8 GPA in his first semester at LSU, allowing him to remain eligible to compete, but he did not achieve at least a 2.0 and is not eligible for the award because of it. Simmons remains eligible for All-American teams and numerous other awards, all of which, like the Wooden Award, are free to set their own standards and criteria.

Some are up in arms that one of the best players in the nation isn’t eligible for the Wooden and would like the Los Angeles Athletic Club to change the criteria for the award to make it the same as the NCAA standards for eligibility. Their argument is that doing so would let voters know that any player who eligible to be playing throughout the season is in fact eligible for the award.

Asking an award to dumb down an already easily achieved minimum standard is ridiculous and the Wooden Award should continue to set its own criteria. It’s not as if this was a secret. The rules for eligibility have been available on the award’s website for years. The award has previously adjusted its criteria to do things like making freshman eligible for inclusion on the initial list of candidates because in this day and age there are a handful of freshmen each season who have the potential win the award.

But adjusting a GPA requirement isn’t necessary just because one star player was tripped up by it. Literally hundreds of others haven’t been. A 2.0 GPA is not a high bar to reach, especially for a freshman who typically isn’t taking upper-division courses in a first semester of college.

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More than 1,000 media members across the nation will vote for the men’s and women’s Wooden Award winners between March 14-21 and fans can vote through the award’s website. The winners will be announced March 28.

While Simmons would probably be one of the top-five vote getters, it seems unlikely he would beat out older players such as Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon and Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine, whose teams have had better seasons largely because of their contributions.

Simmons went into the regular-season finale Saturday averaging 19.7 points, 11.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.

Here are the 15 candidates for the award this season.

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[Kyle Ringo is the assistant editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo