Brandon Miller named National Freshman Player of the Year

The SEC Offensive Player of the Year, the SEC Freshman of the Year, the SEC Tournament MVP, the first-team AP All-American, the...

Yeah, yeah. You get it. Brandon Miller is good. Really good.

So, it should come as no surprise that the best player in Alabama basketball history (and arguably the best in America) is adding one more to his growing trophy collection: National Freshman Player of the Year, voted on by the US Basketball Writers Association (full disclosure: I am a member of both the FWAA and USBWA, and yes, I did vote for Miller).

Miller leads the SEC in scoring (19.6) and three-point field goal percentage (.401), ranks fifth in rebounds per game (8.3) and seventh in field goal percentage (.451). He leads all freshmen in points per game this season and ranks No. 31 overall and has recorded one 40-point game, two 30-point games and has posted twelve 20-point games. Miller joined Collin Sexton as the only Crimson Tide freshmen to record three 30-point games over the last 15 seasons.

Miller is the only player in Division I this season and one of three players (Shane Battier, Duke and Dylan Windler, Belmont) in the last 30 years to score 665 points, record 285 rebounds and make 100 three-pointers. He has scored 210 points against AP Top-25 teams.

There are no-brainer selections, then there are mortal locks. Miller is the latter. I didn’t see any freshmen in the country at Miller’s level. There were some other deserving contenders for National Player of the Year (Edey, Trayce, Keyontae Johnson, Marcus Sasser, etc.), and then there were others near his caliber of play — but they’re all in the pros.

Well done again, Brandon. I’m running out of ways to congratulate him at this point. But I suspect the ultimate ovation he’d most like will occur if ‘Bama can notch just four more wins, and walk out of Houston with a fancy nylon necklace cut from the rims.

He’s just so damned good at almost everything.