The Basketball Hall of Fame released its list of the 20 pre-season candidates for the Bob Cousy Award.  The Bob Cousy Award is given out at the end of each college basketball season to the top men’s basketball point guard in the country.  There is a selection committee made up of Hall of Famers, head coaches, sports information directors, the media, and Bob Cousy himself who select the winner each season.

There have been 14 winners of the award since its creation with Kemba Walker being the only member from the Big East to receive it (back when UConn was a member of the Big East).  Kris Dunn was nominated for the award twice, in 2014 and in 2016, but eventually lost out to Shabazz Napier (UConn) and Tyler Ullis (Kentucky) in those years.

Here is the list of nominees for this season.

Junior point guard Jalen Brunson (Villanova) is the only other player from the Big East to make the 20-man nomination list.

Let’s take a look at the nominees stats from last season to see how Cartwright stacks up going into this season.

Collin Sexton (Alabama): No Stats, Freshman

Manu Lecomte (Baylor): 12.2 ppg/3.8 apg/1.8 rpg/0.8 spg

Jalen Adams (UConn): 14.4 ppg/6.1 apg/4.3 rpg/1.1 spg

Trevon Duval (Duke): No Stats, Freshman

Jordan Bohannon (Iowa): 10.9 ppg/5.1 apg/2.2 rpg/0.9 spg

Devonte Graham (Kansas): 13.4 ppg/4.1 apg/3.1 rpg/1.5 spg

Quentin Snider (Louisville): 12.4 ppg/4.1 apg/2.7 rpg/0.6 spg

Nate Mason (Minnesota): 15.2 ppg/5.0 apg/3.6 rpg/1.4 spg

Joel Berry II (UNC): 14.7 ppg/3.6 apg/3.1 rpg/1.4 spg

Bryant McIntosh (Northwestern): 14.8 ppg/5.2 apg/2.8 rpg/0.7 spg

Matt Farrell (Notre Dame): 14.1 ppg/5.4 apg/2.0 rpg/1.4 spg

Trae Young (Oklahoma): No Stats, Freshman

Kyron Cartwright (Providence): 11.4 pts/6.7 apg/3.5 rpg/1.1 spg

Shake Milton (SMU): 13.0 ppg/4.5 apg/4.1 rpg/1.3 spg

Jaylen Adams (St. Bonaventure): 20.6 ppg/6.5 apg/3.7 rpg/1.6 spg

Jordan McLaughlin (USC): 12.9 ppg/5.5 apg/3.6 rpg/1.5 spg

Jalen Brunson (Villanova): 14.7 ppg/4.1 apg/2.6 rpg/0.9 spg

Bryant Crawford (Wake Forest): 16.2 ppg/5.5 apg/3.8 rpg/1.5 spg

Jevon Carter (West Virginia): 13.5 ppg/3.7 apg/5.0 rpg/2.5 spg

Landry Shamet (Wichita State): 11.4 ppg/3.3 apg/2.8 rpg/0.7 spg

First of all, there are 3 Freshmen on the list, so they obviously don’t have any college statistics to go off of yet.  In that case, we’ll just focus on the 17 other players.  Cartwright ranks compared to the rest of the nominees last year were 1st in assists per game, 8th in rebounds per game, 10th in steals per game, and 16th in points per game.

There are only two players who rank in the top 5 in all 4 categories.  Jaylen Adams of St. Bonaventure ranks 1st in points, 2nd in assists, 2nd in steals, and 5th in rebounds per game.  Bryan Crawford of Wake Forest ranks 2nd in points, 4th in assists, 4th in rebounds, and 3rd in steals per game.

With as deep of a team as Providence has for this upcoming season, returning their top 8 rotation players and adding a Top-20 recruiting class to the mix, the Friars as a team, should be good enough to get him in the conversation alongside the best point guards in the Nation by the end of the year.