Patrick Patterson and John Wall for POY, who’s the more likely candidate?

If I had told you 5 months ago that UK would have two viable candidates, a guard and a big man, in the conversations about National Player of the Year, I’m betting you would have thought Awesome, Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks both came back!

As we all know, Jodie Meeks did not come back, but here we are, with a guard (John Wall) and a big man (Patrick Patterson) being talked about as possibilities for POY. Andy Katz included Wall and Patterson among his top 15 candidates for honors and has posted a corresponding poll to ask fans to rank those 15.

I hope Katz is prepared for the upcoming onslaught of UK votes about to be cast (especially after Coach Cal’s tweet on the subject).  For UK fans, there’s really only one decision to make: whom to rank first.

Actually, that raises an interesting question in and of itself. Between Wall and Patterson, which UK player is the more viable, the more likely candidate for National Player of the Year?

On one hand, you have the veteran big man who is sure to be a double-double machine. We know about what we’re going to get out of Patrick Patterson on a nightly basis, it’s really just degrees of dominance.

On the other hand, you have the freshman phenom, the dynamic talent whose hype machine is already beginning to churn. We know John Wall is going to make some YouTube plays, but will he be the Derrick Rose with springs in his shoes that so many are cracking him up to be?

In my opinion, John Wall is the more realistic candidate for POY. His ceiling is almost infinite. Like I said before, we know about what we’re going to get out of Patterson. On the high end, he’ll be a First Team All American, on the low end, he’ll be First or Second Team All SEC.

So, very prematurely, I ask which Kentucky player has a better shot at winning POY?

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