Semaj Christon Makes Freshman All-American Team

Collegeinsider.com - perhaps best known as the sponsor of the vaguely illustrious CIT - announced their 2013 Freshman All-American team today, and Xavier's own Semaj Christon was one of the players tabbed for that honor. The team also serves as the short list of contenders for their Kyle Macy Award, which is given annually to the top freshman in the nation. This year's award will be given on April 5th at a banquet in Atlanta.

My initial thought was to use this as a springboard to discuss the previous players who had been given this honor to place Semaj in some sort of historical context that might shed a bit of light on exactly how good he really is. Collegeinsider.com through a spanner in my works though, because this is only the second season in which they have put together their list of high-achieving first-year players.

That's not to say there's nothing to be gleaned from this. First of all, it's obviously an honor to make any postseason All-American team. Secondly, they don't pick nobodies for this award. Last year's list includes guys who are making their living balling now (Anthony Davis and Bradley Beal, among others), national player of the year candidates (Trey Burke, Otto Porter, Cody Zeller), and productive college players (Kevin Pangos, Tony Mitchell, et al.). Christon is in good company in terms of the lone year of history this award possesses.

If I may veer into slightly less enthusiastic territory, it should also be noted that former Xavier verbal commits Sim Bhullar and D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera also made this year's squad. At the time that they decommitted, their absences opened up room for Coach Mack to sign Semaj. With the benefit of hindsight, though, it would have been nice to have those two guys on the roster for this season. You can (and many of you have) argue about how much of an asset either of those players would have been going forward, but having three freshman All-American level players on this year's team would have been a boost.