Frank Mason III gaining serious support for national player of the year honors

Kansas guard Frank Mason III

The official announcements are still a couple of weeks away, but Kansas senior Frank Mason III is already starting to garner some pretty impressive support for national player of the year honors.

As KU coach Bill Self mentioned recently, there are a handful of different player of the year honors handed out each season, from the most popular Naismith and Wooden Awards down to the similar honors handed out by organizations like ESPN, CBS Sports and others in between.

While it seems incredibly likely that Mason will walk away with at least one of those — given his strong season and the lack of a run-away choice on any other team — it certainly does not hurt Mason’s chances for winning several of them to get the kind of support he got this week.

College basketball guru/ambassador/broadcaster Dick Vitale took to Twitter to reveal Mason as his choice for player of the year on Thursday.

And, earlier in the day, ESPN.com ran the results of its player poll, in which the 20 players named on the Wooden Award’s list of semifinalists were asked to vote for player of the year. Players were not allowed to vote for themselves, only 18 responded and Mason led the way with seven votes, by far the most of anyone on the list.

These kinds of things certainly don’t guarantee anything for Mason when it comes to actually winning the awards. But they do shape public opinion and they do influence voters.

Let’s say there are a few voters out there who can’t decide between Mason and Villanova’s Josh Hart or others who are star-struck by the name Lonzo Ball.

Seeing a guy like Vitale pick Mason or reading that the players who actually play the game also favor Mason can help change or make up their minds for them.

Beyond that, a small percentage of several of these awards are based on fan voting, and it’s easy to see a scenario in which people who haven’t followed individual players that closely this season go cast their vote for Mason simply because Vitale sang his praises.

Time will tell how all of this shakes out. And, again, Mason seems destined to win at least one or two of the national player of the year honors.

For my money, though, I think Mason should win them all. He checks all of the boxes — great stats, great character, team leader, clutch and signature moments and shots, top player on the nation’s No. 1 ranked team, etc. — and has had a terrific season from start to finish with very few off nights.

Mason enters the regular season finale — 5 p.m. Saturday at Oklahoma State — averaging 20.3 points per game, 4.9 assists per game and 4.0 rebounds per game. He also ranks second on the team in steals (41), is shooting 50 percent from 3-point range (67-for-134) and has played a team-high 36.1 minutes per game.