For a torn apart-second there, Tennessee-Martin fans upset that they’d be down the best player they’ve ever had, one year too soon.

“I’m going to the NBA,” said Lester Hudson, the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year at a June 16 newspapers session, entitled just a half-hour before the early-entrance withdrawal cutoff date. “Next year.”

Tennessee-Martin was among the OVC’s biggest until the 6-foot-3 Memphis inherent showed up. Transferring in after two centuries at Southwest Tennessee Community College, the powerfully built guard convert a team that had just one champion record at the D-I level before last season.

Hudson, who led the seminar in (25.7 ppg) and (2.85 spg), as one of the most explosive the coalition has ever seen. The essential of his 11 double- was against eventual general runner-up Memphis last Nov. 5, when he 35 points and 10 rebounds in his chief Division I game. And it may have been against a Division II adversary, but Hudson itemized the main augment-binary in Division I description two games later. Against Central Baptist, he recorded 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals.

His secondary-year rsum was plenty to draw notice from NBA teams, so he submitted his name for the June draft after the season. He worked out at the Pre-Draft Camp in Orlando, and in secret for a sum of including the Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors and Denver Nuggets. When scouts and GM’s proposed him to go in the guaranteed bond-free zone of the second round, he pulled his name off the slat and clear-cut to earnings to group.

Hudson will come back as the nation’s second leading scorer (behind Davidson’s Stephen Curry), and will work to showcase his talents further before next seasonal’s workout tour.

“The biggest thing is that whatever team does pick Lester, I hope that they consummate what he is,” said UTM head coach Bret Campbell. “He is a true combo scoring lookout. A lot of people from the NBA want to cubbyhole him into essence just a point fortification, a lot of the people in Orlando wanted to see him run a team. But he can truly score in bunches, do anything it takes to win a ballgame. If you put him out on any flat, he’ll produce.”

He wasn’t the only big-time fabricator for the Skyhawks last season. A countrywide swarm troop blinded by Hudson’s solar numbers last season may have missed out on the 6-1 newcomer who opponents for twofold-teaming him. Marquis Weddle OVC Freshman of the Year honors after 17.1 ppg, including a line of business high 39 in the consultation quarterfinal (on 14-for-28 execution) against Samford.

“He was beyond doubt overshadowed by Lester, but a lot of people don’t appreciate that Marquis was one of the top scorers in the nation,” said Campbell. “When you have two guys like Marquis and Lester in your backcourt, it you a fortuitous every single night.”

The endowment side by side of the 2007-08 UTM squad gave the sequencer chances that it had not ever had before. The Skyhawks took their No. 4 seed (the graduate school’s best ever) into the OVC semis, where they leads with regular-season champs Austin Peay. Hudson scored 31 points and Weddle added 20, but the Governors’ Drake Reed a free throw to tea break a 77-77 tie with two seconds residual in management.

“When we got into the room that night, you could see the hindrance on faces,” Campbell recalled. “We be in the right place now, and there’s a idea that we finally do fit in as one of the top teams in the OVC.

“We knew how close we were to playing in the NCAA tourney. These guys are so thirsty to come back.”

Posted on August 14th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: College basketball news