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Lucas named Big Ten Player of the Year

Izzo named Coach of the Year by his peers; Walton wins defensive POY

March 9, 2009

Sophomore guard Kalin Lucas attempts to shoot a 3-pointer during the second half of the game against Purdue Sunday afternoon at Breslin Center. Lucas led the team offensively with a total of 21 points.

Photo by Sam Ruiz | The State News

MSU sophomore guard Kalin Lucas has been crowned Big Ten Player of the Year, the conference announced Monday night.

Lucas was a consensus pick for the award.

“I think anybody that can lead a team that finishes four games above (the next-best Big Ten teams), that’s pretty good,” Izzo said after his team’s 62-51 victory over Purdue. “There’s a lot of good players in the league, but I just think that we’ve asked a lot of him.”

Lucas averaged a team-high 14.8 points and 4.6 assists per game for the Spartans, who won their first outright Big Ten Title since 1999.

Lucas is the first MSU player to win league MVP since Morris Peterson, who earned the honors in 2000 — the last time MSU won the national championship.

“I have to give a lot credit to the coaches and Coach Izzo for just pushing me to be the best player I can be,” Lucas said in a press release. “I have to give a whole bunch of credit to my teammates. I give them all of the credit, without them I wouldn’t have been able to be Big Ten Player of the Year.

“My main goal is just to try and work hard and become the best player I can be. So during the season, we were winning and that was the main goal. We wanted to take it one game at a time and that is what we did and then because of that, I was named Big Ten Player of the Year.”

In Big Ten play, Lucas boosted his scoring averages to 16.5 points per game, finishing behind only Ohio State’s Evan Turner. Although his assists per game decreased during the conference season, he still finished fourth in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio, at 2.26.

Lucas was especially valuable to the Spartans during late-game situations, when he showed no fear in taking big shots with the game on the line. He often did his damage when teammates were fighting shooting slumps.

“He just stepped up every big game for us,” senior guard Travis Walton said. “He carried us when we didn’t shoot that well, he had a good assists-to-turnover ratio, made big free-throws. He made big plays, he wanted the ball in his hands at all times.”

In addition to his late-game heroics, Lucas was a source of consistency for a team that was stymied by injuries to several key players, including starting upperclassmen Goran Suton and Raymar Morgan.

With those players out, Lucas emerged as a team-leader. He also reinvented his game to fill the voids their absences created.

After his team’s blowout loss to North Carolina, Lucas said he wouldn’t leave every practice until making 100 3-pointers, 60 pull-up jumpers and 35-40 free throws.

“He went from a facilitator to a scorer, and he’s a little in between now and that’s what he’s got to do,” Izzo said. “His assists have dropped a little bit when he started scoring more, but I think that’s more of a cause of other guys not making shots than him not passing.”

Walton, Izzo also earn honors
Izzo was named the league’s Coach of the Year by his peers (Penn State’s Ed DeChellis got the nod from the media), while Walton was named Defensive Player of the Year.

Lucas was named to both the media and coaches’ first team while Suton was named to the second team by both.

Morgan earned an honorable mention All-Big Ten from both groups while Walton earned an honorable mention from the media.

Freshman forward Delvon Roe was named to the All-Freshman team.

Original story posted 7:31 p.m.

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