FanHouse Juwan Howard

Davidson's Stephen Curry was the obvious choice for the Most Outstanding Player from the Midwest region, so obvious that it would have been a travesty for anyone else to have received the honor.

But how often can you say that -- that a player from a losing team deserves the top individual honor? It turns out that it happens so rarely that the last player to win a regional most outstanding player award despite playing for a team that didn't reach the Final Four was Juwan Howard of Michigan in 1994.

Those of us who loved the Fab Five remember that 1994 Tournament well. Chris Webber left school after his sophomore year, leaving just four of the Fab Five to try to get Michigan to its third straight Final Four, and Howard was incredible in the four Tournament games. But Arkansas, the eventual national champion, was simply too good, and Michigan shot too poorly in the regional final.

The loss to Arkansas was Howard's last college game. The good news for Davidson fans is that Curry will be back. Perhaps next year he can win a Most Outstanding Player honor without being on the losing side.

Remember how the Mavericks went after Chris Webber earlier this summer? Well, they eventually settled for another former Fab Fiver, Juwan Howard, recently freed by the Timberwolves. It's not yet official -- there's still the technicality of passing through waivers -- but he should be signed and delivered sometime tomorrow. From the team's official site:

"Juwan was too big of an opportunity to pass up," president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson told mavs.com. "Juwan is a winner, he's a leader and he knows the Maverick way.

"He can swing from the '4' to '5,' so it gives us tremendous flexibility on the frontline."

Of course, it's not like the a title contender like the Mavs were flush with available roster spots: someone had to be let loose, and that someone was DJ Mbenga, the fourth-year center who missed most of last year recovering from a torn ACL. It's a tough break for Mbenga, but he is seven-foot tall, which leads me to believe he'll pack up his turntables and find gainful employment as a professional baller soon enough, whether it's on this side of the ocean or the other.

When you have a limited basketball skill-set, you can still carve a niche for yourself by playing with unbridled enthusiasm and energy. Mark Madsen is a poster boy for this method, but apparently it's not something he can just turn on and off like a switch. No, he attacks everything with surprising vigor, even his sightseeing trips in Turkey. From his blog:

The coolest [trip] to me was the Hagia Sophia Mosque. For one thousand years, it was actually the largest Christian Cathedral in the World. Then, it was taken over by the Ottoman Empire (I learned all of this from our guide today!) and converted into a Mosque. Today it is a museum! So it's been a Christian church three times (Replaced once then burned down a second time, finally rebuilt a third time), a mosque, and now it's museum! How cool is that! ... All of the Islamic and Christian influence can be seen in the building! Then we ventured down to a giant underground water tank (Cistern) that was like a mini reservoir to hold water for those many times when Istanbul was attacked and seiged over the centuries. It was awesome!!

I counted: that's seven exclamation points in the span of one paragraph (not to mention the title of his post is "Hello Again!!!!") -- I'm surprised not to see a random :) interjected here and there. (Realize, though, that I poke fun because I care. If I didn't find Madsen interesting enough to subscribe to his blog's RSS feed, I never would have noticed.)

In other news (and I fully admit this is more "newsworthy" and probably should have been the leading point of the post), Madsen describes how Juwan Howard has started to warm up to his younger teammates. Whereas one reporter noted that Howard seemed reluctant to interact with the young cubs at media day, Madsen says Howard is now one of the leaders on the team who talks with everyone "1 through 15" about how they can help the team. Three cheers for team unity!

Previously on FanHouse:
Timberwolves Living Large in Turkey
Juwan Snubs Young Wolves