State's Lawrence Roberts Becomes School's First Wooden Award All-American
Joining MSU's junior forward/center standout on this year's Wooden Award All-American Team are: Josh Childress of Stanford; Duke's Chris Duhon; Andre Emmett of Texas Tech; Providence's Ryan Gomes; Devin Harris of Wisconsin; Oklahoma State's John Lucas; Jameer Nelson of Saint Joseph's; Connecticut's Emeka Okafor; and Blake Stepp of Gonzaga.
The top five candidates for the 28th annual John R. Wooden Award - considered by many as the most prestigious individual honor in college basketball - will be announced this weekend during CBS Sports' coverage of the NCAA Final Four and invited, along with their college coaches, to next month's Wooden Award ceremony in Los Angeles. The 2004 Wooden Award ceremony, which will include the presentation of the Wooden Award All-American Team, the inaugural Women's Wooden Award and the presentation of the Legends of Coaching Award to Stanford's Mike Montgomery, will be televised live by CBS from the Los Angeles Athletic Club on Saturday, April 10. Each finalist will receive a contribution from the John R. Wooden Award Scholarship Fund in their name to their university's general scholarship fund.
In addition to becoming Mississippi State's first Associated Press All-American First Team selection since Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member Bailey Howell in 1958-59, Roberts has also garnered first-team all-America recognition this season by both the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) organizations. Along with earning additional first-team national honors this year by the Sports Illustrated.com and CollegeInsider.com websites as well as by the Adolph F. Rupp Award committee, Roberts has also collected second-team all-America accolades by the Basketball Times publication and ESPN.com.
In becoming the first MSU player since Rickey Brown (1979-80) to average a double-double for an entire season, Roberts completed the 2003-04 campaign as the SEC's No. 7 scorer (16.9 ppg) and second-leading rebounder (10.1 rpg) behind LSU's Jaime Lloreda. Roberts also finished the year ranked fifth in the league in field-goal percentage (51.9%). With an SEC-leading 16 double-doubles on the season, the 6-foot-9, 235-pound Roberts ranks fourth nationally among active NCAA Division I players with 38 career double-doubles. The former Baylor transfer and Houston native has averaged 16.3 points (1,400 career points) and 9.5 rebounds (821 career rebounds) per contest during his three-year, 86-game collegiate career.
This season, Roberts helped lead coach Rick Stansbury's eighth-ranked Bulldogs to a 26-4 overall record and league-best 14-2 SEC mark en route to claiming the school's first outright SEC regular-season championship since 1962-63. This year's State squad also made school history by appearing in a fourth consecutive postseason tournament and earning a third straight NCAA Tournament berth.