University of Tennessee Athletics
Slay Named AP SEC Player of the Year
March 11, 2003 | Men's Basketball
March 11, 2003
VITALE NAMES SLAY AS SEC PLAYER OF THE YEAR
COACH PETERSON INTERVIEW WITH BOB KESLING
Tennessee's senior forward Ron Slay was named as the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year today by the Associated Press.
Slay, the SEC's leading scorer, enters this week's league tournament averaging 21.6 points per game. The Nashville senior is UT's first wireservice SEC Player of the Year since Tony White (UPI) won the award in 1987 in a vote by the league's coaches. He is the first Tennessee player to earn AP SEC Player of the Year honors since Dale Ellis in 1983.
"I'm real satisfied with it,'' Slay said before Tuesday's practice. "It was going to be a hard pick with Kentucky going undefeated (in SEC play) and (Keith) Bogans going so well. "They gave me the benefit of the doubt and I'm appreciative of it.''
''If you go back to last year, when he had the (ACL) injury, how he refocused everything and came back with a businesslike approach, what he's done the last several months is awesome,'' head coach Buzz Peterson said. ''You look at how mature he was about everything and how he picked this team up another notch and led them to some postseason activity.''
Earlier this week, Slay was named as ESPN basketball guru Dick Vitale and CollegeInsider.com as the SEC's top player this season. He was also added to the John R. Wooden Award list of 22 finalists for this year's national collegiate player of the year.
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