James Harden Earns Pac-10 Player of the Week

Freshman only player in the league ranked in top ten of each shooting category.

Jan. 7, 2008

Sun Devil freshman James Harden has been named the U.S. Bank Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Week for Dec. 31 - Jan. 6, Commissioner Tom Hansen announced today.

Harden, a wing from Los Angeles, Calif., helped the Sun Devils to a pair of wins last week, beating Oregon, 62-54, and Oregon State, 72-53. Against the Ducks, Harden scored 20 points, shooting 38.5 percent from the field (5-of-13) and .800 (8-of-10) from the free throw line. He also added seven rebounds and one steal. Against the Beavers, Harden scored 24 points, shooting 61.5 percent from the field (8-of-13). In addition, he recorded five rebounds and two blocks in his seventh 20-point game. This ties Harden for the second-most 20-point game by a freshman in ASU history, and the most by a Pac-10 freshman this year.

For the week, he shot 13-of-26 (.500) from the field, 4-of-8 (.500) from three-point range, 14-of-19 (.737) from the free throw line and averaged 22.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists.

Harden, who is the Pac-10's youngest player (born Aug. 26, 1989), leads the Sun Devils in scoring (17.6 ppg./sixth in Pac-10), steals (25/leads the Pac-10) and minutes per game (31.0) and is shooting .559 from the field (81-of-145/ninth in Pac-10), .802 from the free throw line (69-of-86/eighth in Pac-10) and .471 from the three-point stripe (16-of-34/eighth in Pac-10).

He is the only player in the league ranked in the top 10 in all three shooting categories. He is ninth in FG% (.559), eighth in FT% (.802) and eighth in three-point shooting (.471).

Sixteen ASU players have been named Pac-10 Player of the Week on 25 occasions. It marks just the 28th time a freshman has earned the honor since the Pac-10 started the award in 1983-84, as teammate Ty Abbott (Dec. 17) and UCLA's Kevin Love also earned the honor this year (Nov. 26).