For the first time since the Associated Press began handing out college basketball awards in the 1960s, a Final Four game will pit the AP's Player of the Year opposite its Coach of the Year.
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Of course, Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky and Kentucky coach John Calipari have met in the Final Four before, as Calipari's Wildcats upset Kaminsky's Badgers in the national semifinals last season, but not with such impressive individual hardware in their trophy cases. Within hours of each other on Friday, Kaminsky was named AP Player of the Year and Calipari accepted the organization's Coach of the Year award.
An unheralded prep basketball recruit who played just 7.7 minutes a night as a Wisconsin freshman, Kaminsky captured Player of the Year honors as a senior upon averaging 18.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, 2.7 rebounds during the Badgers' second straight trip to the Final Four. He has shot 54.9 percent from the field and 41.5 percent from 3-point range, anchoring an offense that has scored 80.5 points per game. Kaminsky is the first player in the university's history to win college basketball's most presitigious award.
Calipari, the smooth-talking coach with the 2012 NCAA title and six Final Four appearances with three diffferent schools to his name, has taken a different route to his first Coach of the Year award. The 55-year-old will be on the bench for his fourth national semifinal in six seasons with the Wildcats — none more impressive than this campaign, even if he warranted consideration for the award during his stays at UMass and Memphis, where his sole Final Four appearance with each school has since been vacated.
Calipari puts a 38-0 record and a shot at a third national championship game in four years on the line against Kaminsky this Saturday. The last time the AP Player of the Year and Coach of the Year appeared in such a high-profile game together was the 1979 title tilt, when POY Larry Bird and COY Bill Hodges were on the same Indiana State sideline. The Sycamores entered that game with a perfect record, too.
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