Duke's Nolan Smith a worthy player of year candidate

By foxsports
Published

By ANDREW JONES
FOXSportsCarolinas.com
Feb. 21, 2011


DURHAM, N.C. -- Move over Jimmer, Kemba and Mr. Sullinger, you have company atop the leaderboard for national player of the year, and his name is Nolan Smith.

The Duke senior guard has been creeping to this position all season, including before freshman point guard Kyrie Irving was injured Dec. 4. But in recent weeks, Smith has put the Blue Devils on his back, and with the top four teams in the nation losing this week, the fifth-ranked Devils are positioned for a No. 1 seed in next month's NCAA tournament if the bracket was released today.

Smith is the primary reason why.

Kyle Singler has slumped lately, and role players such as Seth Curry, Mason Plumlee and Andre Dawkins have been a bit inconsistent. But Smith hasn't. Every night out, he's the best player on the floor, like he was during Duke's 79-57 demolition of Georgia Tech on Sunday at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"It's unbelievable how other teams can focus on him so much, but he can still do the things he does for us," Duke forward Ryan Kelly said. "It's offensively; it's defensively. Tonight, we had him on one of their best players (Iman Shumpert), and he did a real good job on him. We expect so much of him, and he seems to bring it every night."

Smith played just 14 minutes in the first half against the Yellow Jackets. But he scored his 20th point of the night just seven minutes into the second half. The second-half eruption included two 3-pointers and a pair of put-backs; one following his own miss and another after a botched alley-oop to Mason Plumlee on a pass Smith threw.

He finished with 28 points, four assists and seven rebounds, and even though he gave up 3 inches to the 6-foot-6 Shumpert, he held the Yellow Jackets star to just 13 points on 4-for-16 shooting.