Notre Dame Basketball: Bonzie Colson Is A National Player of the Year Contender

On Wednesday Bovada came out with their odds for the National Player of the Year Award in college basketball. Notre Dame junior forward Bonzie Colson has the seventh best odds to win the award at 16/1. Caleb Swanigan of Purdue, Nigel Williams-Goss of Gonzaga and Ethan Happ of Wisconsin also were listed as 16/1 odds.

Colson has had one heckuva season so far. At 16.1 PPG and 10.8 RPG. Colson is the only player in the ACC averaging a double-double. What makes his performance so impressive is that at 6’5”, Colson is going up against bigger guys night in and night out and still puts up eye-popping numbers.

On Tuesday night against Wake Forest, Colson went off for a career night as he scored 27 points (four off his career high), 16 rebounds (one off his career high) and a career high five blocks.

Colson may have the seventh best odds, but it might as well be 1000/1. In order for him to be in serious consideration for the award a number of things will have to happen. First, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will have to win out the regular season. They need to finish the regular season on a tear and also Colson will need to be the one leading the charge. He’s going to need to have performances like he had against Wake Forest every game from here on out. Lastly, some luck will have to play into it as well.

The odds on favorite to win the award according to Bovada is Kansas point guard Frank Mason at 5/2. Mason is averaging 20.4 PPG, 5.1 APG, 4.3 RPG and is shooting 51% from three. If Mason finishes the year averaging over 20 points and 5 assists, he’ll be the first player in the Big 12 to do so. Aside from Mason, Villanova’s Josh Hart and UCLA’s Lonzo Ball are the two other favorites at 4/1 and 6/1.

Checkout the full list of favorites right here.