A new season brings new opportunities for teams to make the NCAA Tournament, and with the expansion to 76 teams, making the tournament has become almost a must for most Power Five schools.  What about the players that help the teams get there?  We’re focusing on that in a new weekly article here at Sansom Sports Media, where we hand out the weekly player of the week awards.  There will be two awards given out weekly. One goes to the best player in the mid-majors, and one goes to the best player in the Power conferences.

Rakim Chaney- Valparasio Beacons

Few players made a bigger impact this week than Chaney.  The sophomore guard averaged 22.5 points per game with 6 rebounds and 4 assists.  That is a fantastic week, and doing it on 58% shooting makes it even better.

The Beacons picked up potentially their biggest win ever when they went into Mackey Arena and beat the Purdue Boilermakers in double overtime, and that was the game when it was Chaney time.  He hit shots all over the place, most of them from deep.  Every time Purdue went ahead, Chaney had the answer.  He finished with 35 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists.  Chaney would have had 40 had he not fouled out.  The guard was a major reason Valpo pulled off the huge upset of Purdue.

Valparaiso played two games like every team in the country, and the guard had rather pedestrian numbers on opening night.  Granted, the Beacons blew out Western Illinois, and Chaney only played 28 minutes.  In those 28 minutes, he scored only 10 points, but he won Player of the Week in Mackey Arena. Congrats to Rakim.

Dior Johnson- UCF Knights

Johnson is well-traveled, and everywhere he has gone, he has had a reputation as a scorer.  The difference between Johnson and the rest of the scorers out there is that Johnson has a big penchant for going nuclear and is truly one of the Power Conference’s elite scorers.  It doesn’t hurt that the Knights have built their team around their guard and will go as far as he takes them.

If the first week is any indication of how the season will go for Johnson, it will be one in which he leads the country in scoring.  I don’t know what it means for UCF, but the senior guard will likely see his name mentioned for this award many more times.  On opening night, the electric guard put up 41 points on 13-for-15 from the field and 4-for-4 from deep.  That is elite efficiency to go along with a nuclear scoring night.  The best part is UCF won the game.

Game 2 was another elite scoring night but not quite nuclear.  The guard put up 28 points on 9-for-17 shooting and 2-for-5 from deep.  It was another win for UCF.

Johnson added more counting stats in the second game with 7 rebounds and 2 assists, but UCF isn’t asking him to do those things.  The guard is on the floor to score and score at a high rate.  If he keeps that up, he’ll be an all-conference player in the Big 12 and lead the Knights to the NCAA Tournament.  Congrats to Dior on your Player of the Week award.