IT – Wooden Pre-Season List

by Craig Yamada

Is there a harder working man in the NCAA? I challenge you to name one. Isaiah Thomas has made it his personal responsibility to raise his Dawgs to the next level this year. After his first two years at UW, he is already on pace to become the greatest UW scorer to ever play for the purple and gold. He has been a gym rat this year, as he is rehabbing from his knee injury late last year.

His work ethic is second to none as he forces himself to make over 100 jump shots a day before he can start his day. He has already proven to be the heart and soul of this team and is very deserving of the captain title Romar has placed on him. Thomas scored 16.9 points per game last year and this year only figures to be more productive for the 5’9 Junior guard.

And it seems like the rest of the nation is finally taking notice of it. Isaiah Thomas was named to the John Wooden pre-season top 50 list per a press release on GoHuskies.com. IT joins Tyler Honeycutt (UCLA), Ty Abbot (ASU), Klay Thompson (WSU), Derrick Williams (Zona) and Nikola Vucevic (USC) as the Pac-10 candidates.

If IT can lead this team in scoring and maybe even assists this year, he has as good an opportunity as any to win this award. He also will be a solid favorite to win the Pac-1o POY award this year as well. Perhaps he can claim the prize that mysteriously alluded Q-Pon last year.

Congrats for the nomination IT. We expect big things from you this year.

Thanks for coming!