I hear Maryland fans stumping for Greivis Vasquez as the ACC's player of the year.
Virginia Tech fans are doing the same for Malcolm Delaney.
Since I don't vote in those proceedings, there isn't much incentive for me to spend much time on that argument. Certainly not now, when there's still another five league games remaining.
But I can promise this: The best way for either of those guys to have a chance is to lead their team to a top-two finish in the ACC.
That's because individual awards too often are reduced to selecting a talented option on a conference contender. Or, more to the point, a team that at some point looked like a conference contender.
The term to use for this is "Player of the year on a good team." And it's actually grown as a voting method, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. Maybe the voting bloc is mentally lazy, or doesn't want to try to defend selecting a superlative player from an 8-8 team in league play. Many times, obviously, the player of the year is on the best team. That was the case last year with Ty Lawson, who authored arguably the best point guard season in conference history.
Here's the rundown of how the 56 ACC player of the year awards have been allocated over the years, based on the seeds the winner's team earned for the conference tournament:
No. 1: 27.5
No. 2: 12.5
No. 3: 7
No. 4: 7 (Dickie Hemric, 1955; Billy Cunningham, 1965; Charlie Davis, 1971; David Thompson, 1975; Rodney Monroe, 1991; Rodney Rogers, 1993; Jared Dudley, 2007)
No. 5: 1 (Len Bias, 1985)
No. 6: 1 (Len Bias, 1986)
It is worth noting Cunningham, Thompson, Monroe, Rogers and Dudley all played for teams that finished tied for second or third but lost the tiebreaker.
And in Bias' junior season, Maryland finished just a game out of a three-way share of first in the conference, then lost a tiebreak to Duke for the right to wear the white jerseys in the 4-5 game at the venerable old Omni in Atlanta.
So in a span of nearly four decades, the only guy anywhere close to playing for a non-contender to win the league's player of the year was Bias in 1986. And he was, um, really good that season.
Since Rogers' award in 1993 for a 10-6 Wake team that finished four games out of first, this is the list of guys who won when their team finished (a) two or more games behind the league champ and (b) at 12-4 or worse in the league:
Julius Hodge, 2004
J.J. Redick, 2005
That's it. And Hodge and Redick both played on 11-5 outfits, so it's not like there wasn't a quality team component factored into the voting.
The truth of the matter is if Vasquez or Delaney is going to win the player of the year award, they're probably going to need make sure their teams stay close to the top of the standings. And that's probably going to mean beating Duke in the regular season.
Otherwise, you might as well hand the honor to Jon Scheyer, who is enjoying a fine season for Duke. History says the best player on the best team will win more often than not. And based on the numbers, Scheyer is and will remain the man to beat in the player of the year on a good team race.
Comments