Long Beach State's Casper Ware a Candidate for Cousy Point Guard Award

Long Beach State's Casper Ware was nominated as one of the 11 candidates for the Bob Cousy Award, which exemplifies the best point guard in all of College Basketball.

Ware (Cerritos, Calif. /Gahr High School) is averaging 16.8 points, 3.3 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, while making 39.8 percent of his field goals, 34.4 percent of his threes and 81.1 percent of his free throws. He is among the Big West Conference leaders in scoring (3rd), assists (4th), 3-point field goals made (4th), steals (5th), free throw percentage (5th), and assist-to-turnover ratio (6th). Ware has scored in double-figures in 21 of Long Beach State's 22 games, including scoring at least 20 points six times

Ware brought the Niners back on several occasions, scoring 28 points in a win  against then #9 Pittsburgh in November, and most recently, against the UC Riverside Highlanders; he scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half including 11 of the 14 points in the deciding overtime period.  Long Beach came from behind to win that matchup 77-70.

“My teammates are counting on me,” he said.  “When you are looked upon to do something to help the team, you do not want to let them down.”

It is this drive to help his team out that helped him to attain the Player of the Week three times this season, most recently two weeks ago after his performance against Riverside.

In his most recent game against Northridge, Ware tallied three assists which help him tie Billy Walker (1984-88) with the most assists (507) in Long Beach State history, putting him in the top 10 in assists in the Big West Conference.

The list of the finalists will be cut down to five in March with the winner announced as part of Championship weekend.

You can vote for Casper here