Michigan State University Athletics
Cleaves And Peterson Named Wooden All-Americans
3/28/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 28, 2000
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State seniors Mateen Cleaves (Flint, Mich.) and Morris Peterson (Flint, Mich.) are among the 10 players selected to the 24th annual John R. Wooden All-America team, it was announced Tuesday.
Cleaves, a 6-foot-2 guard, is Michigan State's and the Big Ten's all-time assist leader. He is also the career leader at MSU for steals and ranks among the top-10 scorers in school history. This season, he is averaging 11.9 points, 1.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game.
Cleaves is the only member of the team similarly honored last year, and he and Peterson are the only two Wooden All-Americans playing in the Final Four this weekend.
Peterson, a 6-foot-7 senior, is the ninth-leading scorer in Michigan State history. He is one of only five Spartans to record 1,500 points and 600 rebounds for his career. This season, Peterson is averaging a team-best 16.6 points and 6.1 rebounds.
Others on the team are Shane Battier and Chris Carrawell of Duke, Marcus Fizer of Iowa State, A.J. Guyton of Indiana, Mark Madsen of Stanford, Kenyon Martin of Cincinnati, Chris Mihm of Texas, and Troy Murphy of Notre Dame.
Cleaves, Peterson, Carrawell, Guyton, Madsen and Martin are seniors, Battier, Fizer and Mihm are juniors, and Murphy is a sophomore.
Balloting by 1,047 media members and college basketball experts was conducted over the past three weeks. Voters selected 10 players from the 22 listed on the ballot, and ranked them from 1-to-10.
Voters were asked to take performance in the regular season and postseason into account, as well as a player's character and academic performance. All players were certified by their schools as maintaining a 2.0 grade-point average at their current school.
The top five vote-getters and their coaches will be invited to Los Angeles for the announcement of the Wooden Award winner on April 7 at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Previous winners include Virginia's Ralph Sampson, the only two-time winner, North Carolina's Michael Jordan, Wake Forest's Tim Duncan, Indiana State's Larry Bird, Navy's David Robinson, and Duke's Elton Brand, who won the award last year.
