Colson Named Team MVP at Notre Dame Basketball Year-End Awards Ceremony

Plus other basketball awards, NFL QB prospects’ worst collegiate games, and rivalry games that won’t be close in 2017

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball team held its end-of-year awards ceremony and fan appreciation event, “An Evening with Notre Dame Basketball,” on Monday evening, and it comes as no surprise to anyone who watched the team play that BONZIE M.F. COLSON was named team MVP.

COLSON’s All-ACC year was certainly one to be celebrated, as were the seasons put together by various other members of the 2016-2017 squad.

Here are the other award winners from Monday night, and a couple wonderful final videos about White Steve and VJ, the team’s two departing seniors.

Matt Farrell: Outstanding Playmaker Award

Rex Pflueger: Defensive Player of the Year

Austin Torres: Rockne Scholar-Athlete Award

TJ Gibbs: Newcomer of the Year

White Steve and VJ: Captain Award

Along with their exceptional leadership, it needs to be noted that Beachem and White Steve helped the Irish win a school-record-tying 92 games over the past two seasons. Furthermore, they join Bruce Flowers (1976-79) as the only Notre Dame basketball players to earn seven NCAA tournament victories over a four-year stretch.

If you had told me those two things during their freshman season in 2013-2014 (when the Irish had a...tumultuous first cycle in ACC play), I would have called you insane.

Now, all I can do is watch these videos and get a little misty-eyed when I consider a world without White Steve being White Steve, and without VJ either making me really happy or really angry and nothing in between.

White Steve Video Items of Note:

• I swear I’ve heard BONZIE speak before, but his voice sounds so odd to me in this video
• Matty Farrell thinks White Steve is fun/has fun
• Names his teammates/a hysterically-yelling Jack Nolan call him: Mr. Efficient, Falcon, Scuba Steve, Steve-o, The Baby-Faced Assassin
• Love that Rex brought up the Duke shot from 2015...one of my favorite games of all-time
• HOW DID THEY NOT SHOW/MENTION HIS FSU DUNK?!??!?

VJ Video Items of Note:

• I love that basically the first thing they show is his dunk against UNC in the Elite Eight. Sooooooooooo nice
• His highlights are very soothing to watch...whatever struggles VJ had, when he was on his game, there was no prettier scorer out there than Beachem
• For not being the best defender, VJ had some awesome blocks

Speaking of Awards, Guess Whose Dorm Won Notre Dame Hall of the Year...

If you guessed both mine and VJ Beachem’s former dorm, then you are absolutely correct.

Shoutout to all the current Griffins, and to all of us who came before them, as we obviously paved the way for this wonderful honor. Also, much respect to the last group of Griffins to bring home this honor, nearly a decade ago:

Let’s Briefly Discuss Some Football Stuff

Fox Sports published an interesting story about the four big-name QBs in the upcoming NFL Draft. Sports Illustrated’s Jonathan Jones, Ben Baskin, and Jacob Feldman discuss in some detail the worst games in college for Mitch Trubisky, Deshaun Watson, DeShone Kizer, and Patrick Mahomes.

I found this to be an interesting take on dissecting the potential top QBs in the draft class, looking at how opponents were able to really affect the QBs’ performances.

Meanwhile, Bleacher Report published an article about a bunch of rivalry games that they do not expect to be close in 2017, and of course USC @ Notre Dame is included.

The article goes on to explain why Sam Darnold and the Trojans are expected to completely obliterate the Fighting Irish come October, and at this point it’s pretty difficult to argue considering how the two teams performed a year ago and considering the talent each team has coming back.

But let’s seriously not leave this up to Bleacher Report...do you all agree that USC will destroy Notre Dame this season with Heisman hopeful Sam Darnold leading the charge? Let me know in this poll I felt like adding because I’ve never ended an article with a poll before!