#Biggie4NPOY
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- National Player of the Year and All-America candidate Caleb Swanigan has been named to the final ballot for a John R. Wooden National Player of the Year, the Los Angeles Tipoff Club announced today.
Chosen by a poll of national college basketball experts, the Wooden Award final ballot is comprised of 15 student-athletes who are front-runners for one of the sport's most prestigious individual honor, based on their performances during the 2016-17 season. The winner will be announced in April.
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 the 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 was voted a second-team Academic All-American and is 1-of-2 players in the final 10 to be named an Academic All-American (Gonzaga's Nigel Williams-Goss).
Swanigan and the Boilermakers will close out the regular season Sunday at Northwestern, beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET, and televised by CBS.
