HARRISON NAMED TO NAISMITH NATIONAL LIST

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ATLANTA, Ga. - Junior center David Harrison was one of 30 players named to the men's pre-season 2003-04 Naismith College Basketball Player of the Year national watch list, announced Thursday.

Harrison, a 7'0" from Nashville, Tenn., enters the season as the team's second leading scorer (13.9 ppg.) and rebounder (8.3 rpg.) from a year ago. Harrison also broke nearly every blocked shot category last season for Colorado, is one of four returning starters from last season's NCAA Tournament team that went 20-12. He is also a 2003-04 John R. Wooden Award candidate.

Colorado begins its season with a pair of exhibition games at home on Nov. 11 (Regis) and Nov. 18 (EA Sports All-Stars) before starting the regular season with three consecutive road games beginning Nov. 21 at Northwestern. From there, the Buffaloes will fly to California and take on Pepperdine (Nov. 24) and Cal Poly (Nov. 26).

CU's home opener is Monday, Dec. 1 against Oregon State.

The Naismith Awards program, now in its 36th year, honors the outstanding college basketball players in the United States.  The awards program was founded by the Atlanta Tipoff Club, an organization dedicated to recognizing the achievements of student-athletes in basketball.

The candidates were selected by a vote of the Board of Selectors comprised of leading basketball coaches, journalists, and basketball analysts. Members of the board were asked to name top male and female players who are most likely to be in contention for the award.

Last year's Naismith Award recipients were T.J. Ford (University of Texas) and Diana Tarausi (University of Connecticut).  The first recipient of the male Naismith Award was Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) of UCLA in 1969.  Other college player of the year recipients include many NBA standouts such as Bill Walton, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, and Christian Laettner.

2003-04 Pre-Season Naismith Candidates

Andre Barrett, Seton Hall

Dee Brown, Illinois 

Josh Childress, Stanford           

Paul Davis, Michigan State

Ike Diogu, Arizona State   

Chris Duhon, Duke

Andre Emmett, Texas Tech

Raymond Felton, UNC     

Channing Frye, Arizona            

Ben Gordon, UConn

David Harrison, Colorado

Chris Hill, Michigan State

Julius Hodge, NC State

Luke Jackson, Oregon

Keith Langford, Kansas

Rashad McCants, UNC

Marcus Moore, Washington State

Brandon Mouton, Texas

Jameer Nelson, St. Joseph's

Emeka Okafor, UConn 

Rickey Paulding, Missouri

J.J. Redick, Duke

Darius Rice, Miami  

Romain Sato, Xavier

Wayne Simien, Kansas

Salim Stoudamire, Arizona

Amit Tamir, California

Chris Thomas, Notre Dame

Hakim Warrick, Syracuse

Bracey Wright, Indiana

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