UConn's Kemba Walker was announced the winner of Bob Cousy Award, given annually by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the nation’s top point guard.

Walker beat out Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Nolan Smith of Duke among others for the award, which is given out by the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

“I am thrilled that Kemba has been named the winner of the Bob Cousy Award. He is having one of the great seasons ever in college basketball history,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said in a statement. “Beyond the stats, game-winning shots and accolades, he epitomizes the leadership that a great point guard must have and what he has done to lead our young team to a Big East Championship and to a spot in the Final Four has been unforgettable.”

Walker is averaging 23.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.9 steals per game.

For the first time in Illinois history, two players shared its top basketball award.

East Aurora's Ryan Boatright and Rock Island's Chasson Randle each finished with 257 points after statewide voting by coaches and media ended March 25. 

Randle, who was named Gatorade Player of the Year in Illinois, will team with Boatright on the North team this weekend in the All-American Championship games in Houston, site of the Final Four.

Morgan Park's Wayne Blackshear was third with 198 points, followed by Perspectives-MSA's Anthony Davis (120) and Benet's David Sobolewski (90).

Boatright, a senior guard who has signed with Connecticut, averaged 32 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals per game.

Randle, a senior guard who has signed with Stanford, averaged 21.7 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.

Past winners of the award include Derrick Rose and Kevin Garnett.

• Click here for prior history of the Illinois Mr. Basketball award.

In three games against Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals, Kemba Walker was held below his season averages in field-goal shooting (34.0 percent), three-point shooting (18.7 percent) and scoring (18.3 points per game).

The secret to their success, Pitino says, was keeping him from his comfort zone.

“We start with the theory that if you let a great guard get to the middle of the floor, you're going to have trouble,” Pitino said. “So the first thing we did was try to keep him out of the middle as much as possible.”

It's almost inevitable that Walker will make plays. But Pitino said the Cards concentrated on making him work for everything.

“We know we're not going to stop him to a certain degree, although we had success against him,” Pitino said. “We just want him to shoot a low percentage. So we trap him out of our zone, we trap him on pick and rolls, we switch and then come back and trap him but don't let him roam free in the middle.”

Kemba Walker has garnered most of the publicity for UConn's postseason run, averaging almost 27 points a game, but freshman Jeremy Lamb, Shabazz Napier and Roscoe Smith have stepped up throughout the tournament.

Lamb and Roscoe Smith are both starters, and Shabazz Napier plays 23.6 minutes per game off the bench. Lamb is averaging 18.3 points during NCAA tournament play and Smith scored a career-high 17 points in the Huskies’ opening-round victory over Bucknell. Napier is averaging eight points and 10 points over his last four games.

“He brings that little extra playmaking to a team,” Walker said of Napier. “There’s times when I’m not able to be on the ball the whole game because maybe I’m a little fatigued. Guys will want to pressure me and he gives me that extra edge.”

UConn’s freshmen have been the biggest key, especially lately.

“I don’t think anybody could tell them anything right now,” Walker said. “They’re on top of the world. They’re playing great basketball, each and every one of them. We’re going to need these guys big time for us. They got us where we are now, so hopefully they can keep it up.”

Kemba Walker is on pace to blow away the postseason performances of the Most Outstanding Players of the past 14 NCAA tournaments.

Statsheet.com keeps game-by-game stats dating back to 1997. Since then, the highest postseason average points-plus-rebounds-plus-assists total for the MOPs belongs to Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony. While leading the Orange to the 2003 national title, Melo averaged 33.7 (21.4 points, 10 rebounds, 2.3 assists) in two Big East tournament games and six NCAA tournament games.

In five Big East tournament games and four NCAA tournament games this season, Walker is averaging 37.5 (26.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.3 assists).

Senior guards Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Nolan Smith of Duke are the leading vote-getters on The Associated Press All-America team.

Freshman Jared Sullinger of Ohio State, junior guard Kemba Walker of Connecticut and senior forward JaJuan Johnson of Purdue also are on the team announced Monday.

Fredette, the nation's leading scorer, received all but one of 65 votes from the national media panel that selects the Top 25. Smith, who led the Blue Devils to a No. 1 ranking for 10 weeks this season, got 61 votes.

For a high-profile player like Walker, a junior projected as a possible top-10 pick if he declares for the N.B.A. draft, first-year assistant Kevin Ollie has provided a spiritual, intellectual and practical road map for what it takes to be a leader, a winner and a successful man at the next level — of basketball and life.

“Stay humble, believe in yourself, work every day like it’s your last day and always play like you’re trying out for the team,” Ollie said he told Walker.

Ollie, 38, holds a Ph.D. in the gritty reality of pro basketball life, having retired last year after 13 N.B.A. seasons.

Unlike high-profile ex-Huskies like Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor, Richard Hamilton and Ben Gordon, Ollie was a professional nomad. He played two seasons in the Continental Basketball Association, then played for 11 teams in 12 cities during his N.B.A. career.

In addition to working with UConn’s guards, Ollie reinforces Calhoun’s message — often delivered not so gently — of perseverance.
“You’ve got all these guys who stay in the league because he puts that self-fortitude in us that, throughout cuts, trades or anything that happens, that we believe in ourselves,” Ollie said.

Kemba Walker scored 36 points to lead UConn to a 74-67 win over San Diego State. Walker scored 22 of his 36 points in the second half.

A number of different Aztecs tried to guard Walker.

“We were going to vary who guarded him, go with Chase (Tapley) to start with either fatigue or success by Walker…We had it planned all along that Billy (White) was going to guard him for a good portion of the game,” SDSU coach Steve Fisher said. “But it didn’t matter who was guarding him, he was pretty effective today.”

Walker did all he did after missing his first four shots. Calhoun was asked if the other Huskies every worry when Walker starts slowly.

“He’s a friend. They love him but they follow him,” Calhoun said. “If he misses they don’t worry about that. They really don’t. They believe in him as much as I do.”

Sources say the Charlotte Bobcats are targeting Kemba Walker.

According to ESPN.com, owner Michael Jordan is a "big fan" of Walker.

Walker is projected as a lottery pick, while the Bobcats sit three games out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

San Diego State will try to apply what worked against Jimmer Fredette against UConn's Kemba Walker.

“Hopefully,” Fisher said, “(that) will help us a little bit in terms of an initial thought process.”

The Aztecs can put size on Walker with 6-8 Billy White or 6-7 Kawhi Leonard. Plus, they possess a level of defensive sophistication that allows them to absorb game plans and make subtle tactical adjustments on the fly.

San Diego State has a half-dozen ways to defend ball screens in their man-to-man, from a simple switch to a hard double-team to less aggressively “corralling” the dribbler.

“You have to do a lot of different things against Walker on the ball screens, and not hang your hat on any one thing,” said TV analyst and former college coach Bill Raftery, who has worked several UConn games this season and will call Thursday’s for CBS. “What works one time might not work the next. Great players find ways. You just have to make them work for everything they get.”