Vasquez and the four-timers club

A great, great question popped up in the comments earlier this afternoon.

Condensed it goes something like this:

Now that Greivis Vasquez has won the ACC player of the week award for the fourth time, how does that stack up with other players in the conference's history? And how many of them won the ACC player of the year award?

Intuitively, you'd think someone that won a month's worth of player of the week awards would probably have a pretty good chance of being named the league's player of the year.

And you'd be right.

The ACC has been handing out player of the week awards since 1969-70. In that span, a dozen players before Vasquez won the honor four times in a single season.

* In 1974, David Thompson won four player of the week honors. He captured 139 of the 142 player of the year votes.

* In 1994, Travis Best won it five times. Yet he wasn't even a first-team all-conference selection, and didn't receive a vote for player of the year.

* In 1996, Tim Duncan won it four times. He collected 88 of the 107 player of the year votes.

* In 1997, Duncan won four times. He went on to win 119 of 121 player of the year votes.

* In 1997, Antawn Jamison won four times, but had the misfortune of having Duncan in the league at the same time. He did not receive the two player of the year votes Duncan did (those went to Keith Booth).

* In 1998, Jamison won seven times, and went on to take 97 of the 103 player of the year votes.

* In 1999, Elton Brand won five times, and eventually had 69.5 of the 96 player of the year votes.

* In 2001, Joseph Forte won four times. He was the co-player of the year in the conference, receiving 32 votes (as did Shane Battier) out of 72 total cast.

* In 2003, Josh Howard won four times and was announced as the unanimous player of the year, covering 92 ballots.

* In 2005, J.J. Redick won four times and was named on 68 of 121 player of the year ballots.

* In 2006, Redick won seven times and was the choice on 105 of 108 player of the year ballots.

* In 2008, Tyler Hansbrough won eight times and was a unanimous selection (or so we're told) on all 90 ballots for player of the year.

So 10 out of 12 wound up winning player of the year, nine of them hauled in more than 50 percent of the vote and eight of them landed more than 70 percent of the vote.

Of the two who didn't win, one played in the same season as another dominant player enjoying a superb year, and the other was Travis Best. As good as he was, legendary he was not.

Which is to say that, in a historical sense, I'd say it's a pretty good bet he'll be handed the player of the year award in the ACC early next week.

Comments

[Eddie T]

Great stuff, my friend! BTW, the POY in '94 when best won five POW's was Joe Smith, but I'll bet most of the loyal readers here knew that...

[todd]

Joe Smith was POY in '95. Grant Hill in '94.

[Loyal Reader Mike P.]

your analysis fails to account for the fact that all of the guys you list who won hail from the state of nc. the one non acc-poy'er was not. which is to say vasquez's 4 pow awards do not imply a greater chance at winning the poy. you are confounding pow awards with carolinaness, in statistics parlance.