ESPN RISE

Although nearly all of the previous boys' basketball national player-of-the-year selections have gone on to success at higher levels of the game, ESPN RISE basketball editors truly reward high school performance when it comes to selecting that one player for the nation's highest individual honor.

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Chris Williams/Icon SMI

Derrick Favors leads the nation's top players in the preseason ESPN RISE National Player of the Year tracker.

A player's position in the ESPNU 100 has little bearing on the selection each season. In most years, our national player of the year selection, going back to 1955, has indeed been a consensus top-five recruit, but the eventual pick usually played for a winning program with the statistical résumé and championships to back up his POY candidacy.

Last year, the race for our national player of the year award was wide open going into the season. Eventually, point guard Brandon Jennings emerged as the nation's top prospect and player with some showstopping performances against elite competition. The 6-foot-1 Jennings, currently playing professional basketball for Lottomatica Virtus Roma of the Italian Serie A league, became famed Oak Hill Academy's first-ever national player-of-the-year choice.

As this season kicks off around the country in the coming weeks, there is a definite leader in the clubhouse. What is different about this year's race, and what makes it so special, is the merging of many of the nation's top teams and best players at key holiday tournaments around the country such as the loaded City of Palms Classic in Ft. Myers, Fla., held Dec. 18-23.

No fewer than eight ESPN RISE FAB 50 ranked teams will participate in the event, including No. 1 Duncanville (Duncanville, Texas) and No. 2 Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.). Three other teams that have serious national title aspirations will compete at the tournament -- No. 3 St. Patrick (Elizabeth, N.J.), No. 7 Wheeler (Marietta, Ga.) and No. 8 Lincoln (Brooklyn, N.Y.) -- and their top players will have a chance to make a favorable impression on the nine-man panel that votes on the ESPN RISE National Player of the Year Tracker.

"What you're going to probably see is nationally ranked programs losing twice at this tournament," panel member Patrick Stanwood said. "And it won't mean that they played poorly."

The individual players on those teams, not to mention No. 10 Arlington Country Day (Jacksonville, Fla.), No. 29 Olympia (Orlando, Fla.) and No. 27 Westchester (Los Angeles), will have a chance to make up ground on Derrick Favors, the 6-foot-9, 220-pound forward from South Atlanta, Ga., who is the leading ESPN RISE National Player of the Year heading into the season after collecting 79 points and appearing on all nine ballots. Favors, ranked No. 2 in the ESPNU 100, received the most first-place votes (five) from panel members and picked up an additional 10 points as the No. 1 vote-getter in the ESPN SportsNation poll.

Last season, Favors finished fourth behind Jennings, Samardo Samuels (Louisville) and Jrue Holiday (UCLA), with the latter two already making quite an impact on their respective college teams. Favors' team won't be participating at the City of Palms, but the second-leading returning vote-getter, Lance Stephenson of Lincoln, will be, along with prime-time talents such as Kenny Boynton (Plantation, Fla./American Heritage) and John Wall (Raleigh, N.C./Word of God), who is not eligible for ESPN RISE postseason honors.

Stephenson finished in sixth place overall behind Memphis freshman Tyreke Evans last spring, but in this year's inaugural ESPN RISE Player of the Year Tracker, he was hopped in the voting by Boynton (63 points, nine ballots) and Xavier Henry (Oklahoma City/Putnam City), the No. 1 player in the ESPNU 100. The 6-foot-6 Henry garnered 61 points and appeared on eight ballots, including two panelists who tabbed him as their leading player-of-the-year candidate.

Opinions varied greatly on Stephenson, our national junior player-of-the-year pick last season. Two panelists tabbed him as their top vote-getter, and two others placed him No. 2. He was also No. 2 in the fan voting, behind Favors, but was completely absent from four ballots and finished with 55 points. Boynton didn't garner any first-place votes but did appear on nine ballots, besting Stephenson by eight points overall. Boynton did finish a distant second to Favors by 26 points, but his team will reportedly open at the City of Palms against Wall's Word of God team in a big-time guard matchup that could help Boynton's candidacy when the second ballots are cast after the tournament.

Other highlights of the inaugural tracker include two ballot appearances by Tony Wroten Jr. (Seattle/Garfield) and Jordan Hamilton (Compton, Calif./Dominguez). Wroten was last season's ESPN RISE National Freshman of the Year, and his performances this summer have some recruiting experts tabbing him as one of the nation's best players regardless of class. He finished with 14 points, including one second-place vote. Hamilton also appeared on two ballots to finish with 13 points, but he might not be eligible to appear on future ballots, and this might have affected his point total.

Hamilton was denied a waiver of the "eight-semester rule," which stipulates that a student-athlete can compete in interscholastic athletics for only eight consecutive semesters. The ruling on his appeal to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Appeals Committee has not yet been handed down. If it's denied, his next step will be to appeal to the CIF state office, but until a ruling is made, he won't be eligible to play for ESPN FAB 50 No. 14 Dominguez.

Longtime Dominguez coach Russell Otis has been on a paid leave of absence by the Compton Unified School District for nearly two months and reportedly won't be returning to the Dons' bench this season. The Dons will be coached on an interim basis by former USC and NBA guard Duane Cooper, according to Frank Burlison of the Long Beach Press Telegram.

If Hamilton's eligibility is eventually granted, he will be eligible for ESPN RISE national honors and CalHiSports.com's Mr. Basketball award. If he's ruled ineligible, the implications will not only affect the ESPN FAB team rankings, but also eliminate the nation's No. 8 prospect in the ESPNU 100 from national and state player-of-the-year consideration.

Read below to see the voting results of the inaugural 2008-2009 ESPN RISE National Player of the Year Tracker, and stay logged in to ESPNRISE.com all season to track the progress of the top individual players as well as the top teams in the ESPN RISE FAB 50.

About the experts' poll: Each week, starting in January, ESPNRISE.com's panel of nine experts, which includes two active McDonald's All-American selection committee members, casts its votes for the top ESPN RISE National Player of the Year candidates. Each panelist is asked to list his top seven ESPN RISE Player of the Year candidates regardless of class, and the votes are tabulated on a 10-point scoring system, with a first-place vote equaling 10 points, a second-place vote equaling nine points and down to four points for a seventh-place vote. The 10th ballot is determined by the top seven vote-getters on a weekly ESPN SportsNation fan poll using the same scoring system. The number before the player's name refers to his final ranking on last year's final tracker, and the number in parentheses ( ) refers to the number of ballots a player appeared on this week.

Others receiving votes: Renardo Sidney (Los Angeles/Fairfax) 18 pts. (3); Brandon Knight (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla./Pine Crest) 16 pts. (3); Tony Wroten Jr. (Seattle/Garfield) 14 pts. (2); Jordan Hamilton (Compton, Calif./Dominguez) 13 pts. (2); Dexter Strickland (Elizabeth, N.J./St. Patrick) 13 pts. (2); Harrison Barnes (Ames, Iowa) 12 pts. (2); Jeremy Tyler (San Diego) 7 pts. (1); Abdul Gaddy (Tacoma, Wash./Bellarmine Prep) 6 pts. (1); Tristan Thompson (Newark, N.J./St. Benedict's) 6 pts. (1); Michael Snaer (Moreno Valley, Calif./Rancho Verde) 5 pts. (1); Jared Sullinger (Columbus, Ohio/Northland) 5 pts. (1); Avery Bradley (Henderson, Nev./Findlay) 4 pts. (1); Keith "Tiny" Gallon (Mouth of Wilson, Va./Oak Hill) 4 pts. (1); Hollis Thompson (Concord, Calif./De La Salle) 4 pts. (1); Shawn Williams (Duncanville, Texas) 4 pts. (1).