Sunday, March 04, 2007

Awards

First of all, the weekly ballot:

1. Georgetown
2. Louisville
3. Pittsburgh
4. ND
5. Syracuse
6. Marquette
7. West Virginia
8. DePaul
9. Villanova
10. Providence
11. St John's
12. Connecticut
13. Seton Hall
14. South Florida
15. Rutgers
16. Cincinnati

Player of the Week- Kentrell Gransbery- South Florida
Freshman of the Week- Scottie Reynolds- Villanova

Gransberry with a great performance while losing to DePaul. Scottie scored 40 earlier in the week.

And now (drumroll please) the Black and Green 2006-07 Big East Basketball Awards:

Player of the Year- Aaron Gray- I did not want to pick him, but here's why I did: 10th in the conference in scoring, 2nd in rebounding. He was one of only two on his team to average double figures. The next highest rebounder for the Panthers is at 5.5. For a long time, Gray carried Pitt on his shoulders to the top of the league. Their fall to #3 hurt his status a bit, but no one else in the conference meant as much statistically to his team as Aaron Gray (the G'Town loss came with him on the bench most of the night). Congratulations.

First Team All-Big East-


  • Demetrius Nichols- Syracuse
  • Jeff Green-Georgetown
  • Herbert Hill- Providence
  • Curtis Sumpter- Villanova
  • Russell Carter- Notre Dame

Second Team All-Big East-

  • Kentrell Gransberry- South Florida
  • Geoff McDermott- Providence
  • Jeff Adrien- UCONN
  • Dominic James- Marquette
  • Eugene Harvey- Seton Hall

Third Team All-Big-East-

  • Brian Laing- Seton Hall
  • Scottie Reynolds- Villanova
  • Wilson Chandler- DePaul
  • Terrence Williams- Louisville
  • Colin Falls- Notre Dame

Freshman of the Year- Eugene Harvey- Seton Hall- Put up the best numbers over the course of the season.

First Team All-Freshman-

  • Scottie Reynolds- Villanova
  • Deonta Vaughn- Cincinnati
  • Jerome Dyson- UCONN
  • Luke Harangody- Notre Dame
  • Da'Sean Butler- West Virginia

Second Team All-Freshman-

  • Tory Jackson- Notre Dame
  • Hasheem Thabeet- UCONN
  • Paul Harris- Syracuse
  • Edgar Sosa- Louisville
  • DaJuan Summers- Georgetown

Defensive Player of the Year- Hasheem Thabeet- UCONN- 6.4 rebounds, 3.9 blocks per game as a freshman. He will be loads of fun to watch for the next few years. Except against Notre Dame, of course.

Coach of the Year- Mike Brey- Notre Dame- Congratulations, coach. Best regular season in Brey's tenure comes with his most exciting team in years. No one expected the Irish to lock up an NCAA bid, especially after the loss of point guard Kyle McAlarney. With the help of his three captains and two star freshmen, Brey has formed a lineup that can compete with any in the conference. It is yet to be seen how the Irish will fare against nonconference opponents in 2007, but signs are good.

BET Champion- Georgetown- #1 for a reason

BET Runner-Up- Pittsburgh- Will beat Louisville in the semis

6 comments:

Bryan said...

Call this one a hunch:

ND is going to play Winthrop in the first round of the tourney, either in the 5-12 or 6-11 game....

Can you imagine the joy ND-haters will have that week? There is a good chance 80% of the country would pick ND to lose...Can you see it now? People who haven't seen ND play one sec this year will openly proclaim 'ND is the perfect opponent for Winthrop.'

Anonymous said...

Is that the best you can do to explain why Eugene Harvey (unquestionably an exceptional player)was your BE Freshman of the Year over Scottie Reynolds?

BlackandGreen said...

Obviously, it's a very tough call. I feel Harvey (with plenty of help from Brian Laing) had a bigger impact.

You could make the argument that Seton Hall is still a bad team even with Harvey and 'Nova might not make the Dance without Scottie. However, Harvey put up better stats and played a bigger role running the Pirates offense. Mike Nardi gave Reynolds plenty of help with assists in the backcourt.

Is my argument convincing? That's up to you. Personally, it probably was the hardest choice on the board.

BlackandGreen said...

Bryan-

By the way, I would love an opportunity to play Winthrop. If people want to pick against the Irish in that matchup, be my guest.

Anonymous said...

The player and freshman of the year should be on the respective first team.

BlackandGreen said...

Not according to the head of the Big East Basketball blog. The votes are for the awards on his site, so I followed his lead.

Also, apparently the e-mail got messed up for sending my votes in, so this site unfortantely is unrepresented by the results. Oh, well.