Martin Wins Wooden Award

April 7, 2000 / 11:00 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Even without an opportunity to shine in this spring's NCAA tournament, Cincinnati's Kenyon Martin continues to be acknowledged as the men's college basketball player of the year.

The 6-foot-9 senior, who broke his right leg in Cincinnati's first-round game of the Conference USA tournament four weeks ago, was a runaway winner of the 24th John R. Wooden Award, presented Friday at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

He was previously honored as player of the year by The Associated Press, the Atlanta Tipoff Club and the United States Basketball Writers Association.

"If I could have played, I would trade all this in," Martin said. "Just not being able to help my team, that was the biggest thing. But it is a great honor receiving this award."

The awards handed out earlier were based on the regular season; the 1,047 sportswriters and sportscasters who voted for the Wooden Award had until March 27 to cast their ballots. By that time, the Final Four had been determined.

"He's the best player I've ever had," Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins said of Martin. "He influences the game at both ends, which very few people do. He'll be a great pro, I think. He's got great quickness, he's got great explosion, and he's really got great skills.

"He's a better person than he is a player. He's really a good guy."

Martin, who's still on crutches, figures to be one of the top picks in the upcoming NBA draft.

"I just want to play ball, that's all I'm looking forward to," he said.

Huggins said Martin returned to Cincinnati for his senior year for his team, not to enhance his draft status.

Martin received 4,365 points to 2,993 for runnerup Marcus Fizer of Iowa State. Mateen Cleaves, who led Michigan State to an 89-76 victory over Florida in Monday night's NCAA championship game, was third with 2,296. Duke's Shane Battier was next with 1,990, followed by Indiana's A.J. Guyton (1,831), Notre Dame's Troy Murphy (1,446), Duke's Chris Carrawell (1,407), Michigan State's Morris Peterson (1,274), Texas' Chris Mihm (1,160) and Stanford's Mark Madsen (1,150).

Martin, Cleaves, Guyton, Carrawell, Peterson and Madsen are seniors, Fizer, Battier and Mihm are juniors, and Murphy is a sophomore.

Fizer, Cleaves, Battier, Peterson and Madsen attended Friday's ceremony.

Martin, one point shy of being a unanimous All-American selection, is the first player from Cincinnati to win the Wooden Award, named for the 89-year-old former UCLA coach who guided the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships in a 12-year span before retiring in 1975.

The first Wooden Award winner was UCLA's Marques Johnson in 1977.

Wooden expressed satisfaction that the award went to a senior, saying, "I am very pleased always when the winner of this stays in school."

A three-time Conference USA defensive player of the year, Martin averaged 18.9 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.4 blocked shots this season.

His broken leg in the opening three minutes of Cincinnati's 68-58 loss to Saint Louis on March 9 cost the Bearcats the No. 1 ranking, a position they held for 12 weeks.

Without Martin, Cincinnati entered the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed in the South Regional, and he could only watch helplessly as the Bearcats lost to seventh-seeded Tulsa 69-61 in the second round.

Among previous Wooden Award winners were Indiana State's Larry Bird, North Carolina's Michael Jordan, Navy's David Robinson, Wake Forest's Tim Duncan and Duke's Elton Brand, who won last year. Virginia's Ralph Sampson (1982-83) is the only two-time winner.