St. John's Guard Ponds Named to Bob Cousy Award Preseason Watch List

@StJohnsBball.

After a stunning sophomore season, guard Shamorie Ponds was named to the Preseason Watch List for the Bob Cousy Award, it was announced on Monday afternoon by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.


The Bob Cousy Award, one of five accolades bestowed by the Hall corresponding to the five traditional positions on the floor, recognizes the best point guard in the game of college basketball. The watch list will be trimmed to 10 by mid-February before a group of five finalists in March. The winner of the award will be announced at the ESPN College Basketball Awards Show presented by Wendy’s on Friday, April 12, 2019, in Los Angeles.

Ponds, who is in his junior year, is one of three Big East point guards to find a spot on the watch list, joining Marquette’s Markus Howard and Villanova’s Jahvon Quinerly.

After breaking the St. John’s freshman scoring record with 573 points in 2016-17, Ponds elevated his game as a sophomore and turned in one of the most memorable campaigns in program history.
The sharpshooting lefty led the Big East and ranked 18th nationally in scoring at 21.6 points per game, once again shattering the Red Storm’s sophomore scoring record with 647 points. Ponds became the 51st player in program history to score 1,000 points for his career and just the 10th player to do so in his second year with the team.
In early February, Ponds guided the Red Storm to one of its most memorable streaks in program history. After scoring 31 points in a closely contested home loss to No. 6 Xavier at Carnesecca Arena that saw him eclipse the 1,000-point plateau, Ponds dropped 24 of his 33 points in the second half of the Red Storm’s win over No. 4 Duke at Madison Square Garden. Just a few days later, the Brooklyn native posted a team-high 26 points in the Johnnies’ win over No. 1 Villanova, giving the program its first victory over a top-ranked team since January of 1985. For an encore, Ponds returned home to Carnesecca Arena and broke the building’s single-game scoring record, netting 44 points in a win over Marquette on Feb. 10.

2019 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award Candidates:

Jared Harper - Auburn
Ky Bowman - Boston College
Tre Jones - Duke
Josh Perkins - Gonzaga
Devon Dotson - Kansas
Tremont Waters - LSU
Markus Howard - Marquette
Jon Elmore - Marshall
Cassius Winston - Michigan State
Cody Martin - Nevada
Ahmad Carver - Old Dominion
Payton Pritchard - Oregon
Carsen Edwards - Purdue
Shamorie Ponds - St. John's
Alex Robinson - TCU
Jordan Bone - Tennessee
Jaylen Hands - UCLA
Jahvon Quinerly - Villanova
Ty Jerome - Virginia
Justin Robinson - Virginia Tech