BearTalk

There is no argument from Stanford on Cal senior Jerome Randle’s selection as Pac-10 Player of the Year over Landry Fields.

Coach Johnny Dawkins was about it Tuesday during the weekly Pac-10 coaches media call, and said Randle deserves the award and that his guy, who leads the Pac-10 in scoring and is second in rebounding, understands the way the coaches’ vote went.

“I think Randle deserves it,” Dawkins said. “He’s on the best team in the Pac-10 this season and you give him credit for that. He was able to accomplish that while winning at a high level.

“For our guy, he had a special season. I don’t think there’s anybody who played better than Landry Fields this season, and I don’t think anybody would argue that. But it’s bigger than that, It’s about your body of work (as a team), along with your (individual) performance. Their body of work is clearly better than our body of work this year.

“So we have no problem with the selections. We have to keep competing and keep getting better to earn those kind of awards.”

Dawkins said Fields was not surprised nor upset by Randle’s selection.

“He understands that they’ve had a terrific season and their kids deserve to be honored for that,” Dawkins said. “He knows he’s having a terrific season, one of the rare seasons that a player’s ever had at our university and probably in the conference. By the same token, we’ve not performed to the level we needed to. I think he understands that. 

“He’ll be the first to say in his mind he thinks Randle deserves that, and he has said that, even before the awards were given out.”