User:Rlewisjr2018/Mr. Basketball of Arkansas

Mr. Basketball of Arkansas
The Mr. Basketball of Arkansas award is awarded every year to the student-athlete chosen as the best individual high school basketball player in the state of Arkansas in the U.S. This award was earned by the best of the best in the state of Arkansas. Players who were leaders on and off the court, showed sportsmanship, and lead their team to victory in most occasions.

Life After Basketball
Matt Daniel is one of the winners of the Mr. Basketball of Arkansas and he had a famous reputation for being an elite player in his school. However, he didn't get drafted to the NBA, so he became undrafted and is unable to make the draft. Afterwards, he decided to coach the Marshall women's basketball team. He led the team to two post season appearances and recorded a total of 71 wins during his head coaching career. Another basketball player who had a very good career is Marcus Monk and he was once a football player for the New York Giants. After he didn't get drafted, Marcus monk pursued his talents into football and led his schools conference in receptions and broke the previous school record for most receptions in the same year.

Schools with Multiple Award Winners
The universities that have multiple award winners tend to be schools that are in, if not, close to the state of Arkansas. These schools are known to have a rich history of basketball in their state and the players that earned the award multiple times have either been drafted to the NBA, or played for a team in the NBA G-League. Oklahoma State University was the first ever school to achieved the NCAA championships in back-to-back years. In addition, the school has a total of 6 final four appearances throughout the history of the school, so as you can see Oklahoma State is a school with huge success in the basketball department. The University of Kentucky was known to be successful in the first few years of their career, but there were a couple of setbacks that the school experienced, like a couple of Kentucky players being involved in illegal activities that almost costed the coach his job. The University of Florida, like most of the SEC schools, were once thought of as a football college but eventually after making the NCAA tournaments 3 times in a row, the school soon got it's recognition as a prestigious basketball university and winning multiple SEC championships.

Significance
George Mikan was a big influence in this award being developed, being that he was the first "Mr. Basketball" player to ever win the award. His influence on the award gave away the idea for each state in the U.S. to be able to have their own Mr. Basketball award. States, for example like, Illinois, Alabama, and Maine who were able to have significant stories regarding the Mr. Basketball award winners in their state.