#Biggie4NPOY / Game-by-Game Stats
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - National Player of the Year and All-America candidate Caleb Swanigan has been named 1-of-10 finalists for the Naismith Award, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced this morning.
The award is given to the nation's top collegiate player and the final four finalists will be announced March 19, 2017. The award will be presented at the annual Final Four Awards brunch Sunday, April 2, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Swanigan has had one of the top statistical seasons in not only Purdue history, but in college basketball over the last 25 years. The 6-foot, 9-inch sophomore from Fort Wayne, Indiana, leads the Big Ten (league games only) in scoring (18.9 ppg) and rebounds (12.5) and paces the country in double-doubles with 24, just two shy of the all-time Big Ten record set by Brad Sellers (1985-86) and the great Jerry Lucas (three times; 1959-60, 1960-61, 1961-62). His 24 double-doubles are the most for a Big Ten player in the last 31 years.
In last night's win over Indiana that clinched a share of Purdue's 23rd Big Ten regular-season championship, Swanigan recorded his 12th, 20-point, 10-rebound game with a dominating 21-point, 10-rebound, three-assist, three-block effort while drawing 14 fouls against Indiana's frontline.
Based on a 35-game schedule, Swanigan is on pace to become the first major-college player since at least 1992-93 to have 600 points, 400 rebounds and 100 assists in a season. He is already the first Purdue player to have 500 points and 300 rebounds in a since Brad Miller did so during the 1997-98 campaign and he owns the school record for rebounds in a season with 376, smashing the school record of 352 by Joe Barry Carroll in 1978-79.
Swanigan is also on pace to become the first player since Wake Forest's Tim Duncan in 1996-97 to average 18.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. He is 1-of-2 players this year (Eastern Washington's Jacob Wiley) to average 10.0 points and shoot at least 54-45-78 percent from the three levels (FGs-3Ps-FTs).
Swanigan has posted four games of 20-20 this year, double the amount of all Big Ten players combined over the last 20 years and no other player in America has more than two 20-20 games this year.
To top it off, Swanigan is a first-team Academic All-District honoree and is now eligible for Academic All-America recognition.
Swanigan and the Boilermakers will close out the regular season Sunday at Northwestern, beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET, and televised by CBS. A win over the Wildcats will give Purdue its first outright Big Ten title since the 1995-96 season.
