Player of the Week, Dec. 14

Player of the Week: Jacob Pullen, Kansas State

With final exams beginning across the country at many colleges, it was something of a light week in college basketball – but that does not mean there weren’t plenty of fantastic individual performances. Georgetown’s Greg Monroe finally performed to his potential against Butler, going for 24 points and 15 rebounds in a row; Kentucky’s John Wall lit it up on a national stage, getting 25 points and six steals against Connecticut at Madison Square Garden; Roman Martinez of New Mexico kept the Lobos undefeated after averaging 24 points and four rebounds in a couple of wins; San Diego State stud freshman Kawhi Leonard averaging 18 points and 15 rebounds; and don’t forget Kansas freshman Xavier Henry dropping 31 on La Salle and shooting 71 percent from three on the week. Also, how about Jamel Jackson of Seton Hall hitting 12 three-pointers and scoring 40 points off the bench? Or Jeremy Lin scoring 25 to lead Harvard to another upset over Boston College?

Needless to say, whoever wins this week’s Collegehoops.net Player of the Week had to do something special. The award goes to Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen. The 6-0 junior led the Wildcats to two very solid wins, beating Xavier by 15 at home and then going on the road to beat No. 17 UNLV by 15 as well. Against the Musketeers, Pullen scored 16 points and dished out three assists, but he really came alive against UNLV. On Saturday, Pullen hit seven three-pointers en route to a 28-point effort, to go along with six rebounds. For the week, Pullen averaged an impressive 22 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists.

Kansas State has now won six in a row, including wins over Dayton, Washington State, and the two wins this week over Xavier and UNLV. Pullen is a major reason for the 9-1 start, as he is averaging 19.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. He is also snatching 1.5 steals per game and hitting better than 80 percent of his free throws and nearly 40 percent of his three-point attempts. Pullen will attempt to continue his impressive play – 22.7 points, 3.2 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game during the winning streak – at Alabama on Saturday.