Morrison, Redick race should go down to wire

J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison. Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick.

Almost without fail, one of those is the answer given to any question about national player of the year awards.

The order seems to depend on which player was last on TV.

Redick, the senior guard from Duke, and Morrison, the junior forward from Gonzaga, have held the top two places on the national scoring list almost all season. They have lately matched impressive scoring efforts as their teams stay up in the Top 25, Duke at No. 1, Gonzaga at No. 5.

A close race for The Associated Press’ player of the year would be new. Since the 1995-96 season, there really hasn’t been a down-to-the-wire result.

In 1998-99, Elton Brand of Duke finished 11 votes in front of Andre Miller of Utah, the same count David West of Xavier beat T.J. Ford of Texas by in 2002-03.

Since the 72-vote limit, the biggest runaway was 2003-04 when Jameer Nelson of Saint Joseph’s beat Emeka Okafor of Connecticut by 41 votes. Andrew Bogut of Utah won the award last season with 31 votes, 16 ahead of Redick.

Explorers find way

While Villanova is the Philadelphia school grabbing the national headlines, La Salle is making some impressive news.

Second-year coach John Giannini has the Explorers (17-8, 9-5 Atlantic 10) in position for a first-round bye in the conference tournament and their first postseason berth since 1992.

La Salle has already secured its first winning season since 1992-93, set a school record for road victories and sold out a home game for the first time in nearly five years. Not bad for a team picked to finish 10th in the A-10 one season after playing with only seven scholarship players.

Sock it to me

Xavier’s players are honoring injured teammate Brian Thornton with a fashion statement the rest of the season.

The Musketeers will wear high socks, which had become a trademark style of Thornton.

Thornton (15.3 ppg) was diving for a loose ball when he broke his right ankle in the first half of a 79-70 loss to La Salle on Feb. 12.

Point taken

LSU coach John Brady is lobbying for senior guard Darrel Mitchell for consideration as the Southeastern Conference’s player of the year with the Tigers having clinched a second straight SEC Western Division title.

“I don’t think there is a player that has been more consistent and has also been asked to play the point guard position, which he has never played. That is significant,” Brady said.

The 5-foot-11 Mitchell has handled the point since Tack Minor tore cartilage in a game against Cincinnati on Dec. 23 and had season-ending surgery six days later.

Mitchell has topped 20 points in five of his last nine games, including 21 points Wednesday night in a 77-66 victory at Vanderbilt.