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It’s Oscar season, so you know that that means. Yep, Chris DiIonno hands out his end of the year ACC awards.
The Aaron Brooks award for "most turnovers committed while remaining a starter” goes to…
D.J. Strawberry! I learned that there’s a legend in New Orleans that if you turn off your lights and say “Saints” three times, Aaron Brooks will appear and throw an interception. I’m starting to get worried that the same thing could happen with D.J.
Look, as I’ve mentioned many times before in this space, I love Strawberry. If he didn’t tear his ACL last year, I maintain that he could’ve become the next Juan Dixon, a great defender who eventually morphed into a great shooter. Not only can he guard, he can rebound in traffic, and has found a way this season to score in bunches. But the guy just can’t run a basketball team.
You can tell when he’s bringing the ball up that he has to focus a lot of energy on maintaining his dribble and keeping his eyes on the defender. For a true point guard, those qualities should be second nature, like breathing. Honestly, I think running the point this year has hurt him too. He’s had to waste so much energy bringing the ball up that he’s gotten a little tired on the defensive end. Hopefully he’ll benefit next season when he should move to the three to replace Caner-Medley and leave the point guard duties to Parrish Brown and the incoming freshmen.
The Houston Texans award for “most surprising season followed by a complete letdown” goes to…
Virginia Tech. But unlike the Texans, the Hokies won’t have a chance to add Reggie Bush to their team.
The Derek Jeter award for "player who gets too much credit for a teams success" goes to…
Sheldon Williams. Honestly, if he ends up being a first ballot All-American, he should send a huge thank you card to Dick Vitale and the hype train that he started. He was supposed to make the team based on his defensive prowess, but he has had a ton of problems guarding people that are his size. Examples (for reference Williams is listed at 6-9; 250):
- Duke at Indiana: Marco Killingsworth (6-8; 268) goes 15-20, for 34 pts and 10 boards
- Virginia Tech at Duke: Coleman Collins (6-9; 235) went 12-17, 25 pts and 8 boards
- In a blowout win over Texas, LaMarcus Aldridge (6-10; 237) still had 21 pts and 6 boards
- NC State at Duke: Cedric Cimmons (6-9; 233) went 11-18 for 28 pts and 9 boards
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Duke at FSU: Thornton (PF) goes for 26 pts and 6 boards and Johnson (C) goes for 22 and 13.
Now two of these players are great players (Killingsworth and Aldridge) but look at what he gave up to the other guys – and two of them were at home! Yeah, he looks like a dominating force when he’s swatting away balls thrown up by the backup point guard from Clemson, but when he meets someone his size it’s a different story.
And when was the last time you saw an All-American disappear with such frequency on offense? With most inside-outside combo’s, it’s the inside guy who makes the outside shooter a better player. It’s not the case at all when you look at Williams and Redick. Have you noticed that every team’s defensive philosophy when playing Duke is to make hell for Redick by throwing as many bodies at him as possible? Redick doesn’t benefit from playing with Williams, Williams benefits from playing with Redick. What would Killingsworth average with Redick on his team, 35 a game?
The Julius Hodge Lifetime achievement award for “player who has been a senior for the past four years” goes to…
Ilian Evtimov, a former teammate of Hodge. By all accounts Evitmov has been playing collegiate basketball since the Cold War ended. If you watch closely when Jim Valvano is running around the court after N.C. State knocked off the greatest nickname for a team in sports history (Phi Slamma Jamma) to win the National Title back in 1984, you can see Evtimov in the background. Do you think that if any prominent media member every brought this to national attention that this could blow up like a Danny Almonte situation only instead of their being a dispute about his age, it’d be about his athletic eligibility?
For the Best Foreign Language Film, the Oscar goes to…
Say it with me now: Laurynas Mikalauskas, the freshmen forward from UVA. This is refreshing for two reasons. First, it was widely accepted and believed that Wake Forest and N.C. State had the market on European players covered, so it’s nice to know that foreign basketball players are aware that the United States has more than two universities. Second, many European ballers jump straight from pro ball there to the NBA and usually bust. College is a great chance for them to develop their skills. What’s the worst that can happen, go back to Europe and play pro ball there?
The Seattle Seahawks award for “worst uniforms” or Oscar for worst makeup/costumes goes to:
Clemson. This award should’ve gone to all the teams in the conference who wear Nike uniforms (Maryland, Duke, North Carolina) when Nike added a silver lining at the top of the shoulder blades on the uniforms for the ACC/Big 10 challenge. But it’s just hard to ignore anyone whose main uniform is solid orange and secondary color is purple.
The Robert DeNiro/Al Pacino diner scene in Heat award for "greatest moment of the season"…
I honestly thought about this for a long time, but I couldn’t top the Florida State win over Duke. I mean most students don’t rush the court twice in the same season, let alone twice in the same game. When they did it the first time, I thought they were headed straight for the Duke bench, to try and take prisoners. Sort of like the Others on Lost. Then to see Coach K try to get his players out of there before the game was over because he knew of the impending onslaught that was coming… well that was just priceless.
The Chris Paul award for biggest impact made by a freshman…
Tyler Hansbrough. Can you imagine if Sean May didn’t go pro last year? Having both May and Hansbrough in the low post, how many points would they average a piece, 40? That’s just a scary thought. I think I’m going to move on.
Oscar for Best Director goes to…
The popular pick in this category is Carolina coach Roy Williams, who will probably get some coach of the year votes (note: if that goes to anyone other than Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, the voting is rigged). But I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for coaches who are new to the league, and don’t work with much talent. That’s why I think Dave Leitao from Virginia deserves a lot more credit than he’s getting. Tyler Hansbrough is a machine – how could you not win with him? Virginia has a star point guard in Singletary and a decent wingmen in Reynolds and Bannister but that’s about it. The fact that the worst UVA could finish in the ACC is 7-9 is a monumental accomplishment, and it gives a lot of hope for the program in the future.
I also have a soft spot in my heart for classy guys (not to say that Roy Williams isn’t one) and Leitao definitely fits the bill. This is what he said after Gary Williams won his 349th game: “My congratulations go out to the Maryland basketball program and especially to head coach Gary Williams,” Cavaliers coach Dave Leitao said. “There are only a few storied and tradition-laden programs in America. When you can call yourself the best at one of those schools, that's something that is not handed out often. He coaches with energy and passion. ... I admire him.”
The J.J. Redick award for “player you find yourself rooting against whenever he’s on T.V.” goes to…
J.J. Redick! Three years ago, I thought I was one of a handful that had complete and utter distain for this kid. Now? Everyone who roots for anyone not named Duke hates him. The country hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War. It’s become so cliché to rip Duke, that now it’s becoming cliché to defend them.
I don’t have many rules of life, but one of them is to never hate any player in college, for the lone reason that they’re not making money for what they do, so they don’t deserve to be treated worse than the professionals are. I ignored that rule when I was at Maryland because I figured that Redick and I were in school together. In other words, I thought my actions were justified because it was my right as a student to hate on other students. Well I’m out of school now. In three months he will be too. It’s time to put this stuff behind us. Honestly, I’m tired. I feel like Tommy Lee Jones at the end of The Fugitive. I just want this to be over. As long as Duke doesn’t win the national title this year, maybe we can both just go on our way.
The 2006 NFL Playoffs award for worst officiating goes to…
Florida State at Duke. I want you to think about this for a minute. Do you realize if the officials hadn’t ‘mistakenly’ given a technical foul to Alexander Johnson (which resulted in him being ejected from the game) that FSU would’ve swept Duke this year? (They ended up losing that game in Durham by one, in OT.) You read that correctly. The soon to be ACC Champions/ #1 seed in the South Region and odds on favorite to win the national title should’ve been swept by Florida State. Isn’t this like running for President after losing your city’s mayoral race?
Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role goes to…
Brenda Frese! I’ve been afraid of saying anything all season, but I can’t keep it bottled up anymore. HOW ‘BOUT THOSE LADY TERPS! Do you know the only teams that Maryland has lost to all season? Duke and Tennessee. That’s it! How cool is that? That means that they have beaten every team that they’re supposed to beat. No surprise losses at Clemson. No heartbreaking defeats at home to Miami. Do you know what it feels like to root for a team who not only meets expectations, but also exceeds them? Isn’t this the polar opposite of rooting for the men?
I was a little worried when Frese was first brought in to coach the women’s team, because the only thing that I’d heard about her was that she was a great recruiter. Well as Billy Donovan has showed us at Florida, being a great recruiter does not make you a great coach. But that’s not the case with Frese. In three years she’s totally turned this program around. And for that, I tip my hat to thee.
The Herb Sendek award for biggest overachiever while underachieving at the same time goes to…
Miami.
Let’s get something straight. There will always be ACC basketball purists – guys who liked the league better with 8/9 teams because you could play a round robin schedule. The same people who didn’t give squat about what ACC football was like, as long as the basketball was the best in the nation.
Now, with that said, expansion happened so everyone better get used to it. In the beginning, no one thought that Virginia Tech and Miami would be a good addition to the basketball side of things. But Miami has proved especially frisky over the past two years, to the point where people a) fear their backcourt and b) start expecting things of them. Well, Diaz and Hite hardly ever disappoint, but as a team, Miami isn’t consistent enough to make a push for a tournament bid. And that ticks the ACC purists off even more, because what good are you to the league if you can’t make the field of 65?
The Peyton Manning Award for player/team that never lived up to expectations…
Time to bed farewell to the Maryland Senior class. The first batch of players recruited after the 2002 National Title, a group of kids who were supposed to bring that type of success every year. That 2004 ACC Championship run showed what they were capable of, but the seniors never got close to duplicating that performance.
Gilchrist left the team to try and realize his pro dreams, McCray turned into a solid player but after never filling the shoes of the previous two shooting guards before him (Dixon and Nicholas), and ended up being booted off the team for Academic reasons. Travis Garrison never became the type of dominant post player that he was when he was an All-American at DeMatha. He became a starter after dominating the Italy trip in the summer of ’04, but was soon regulated to the bench as James Gist and Ikene Ibekwe started stealing his minutes.
So that leaves the only senior starter on the Maryland team, Nik Caner-Medley. I’ve been staring at the computer screen for a solid 15 minutes now trying to think of a way to put NCM’s career into words. But then I realized that I think that’s really all you can say. When your searching for words to describe him, none come to you. He did some things very well, some very poorly and nothing memorable. You can’t say, ‘oh remember when he hit that game winner over so and so’ because it didn’t happen. At the same time, you know that poured in 15 points and 9 boards in that win. He had a knack for getting the quietest 15-20 points out of any player I’ve ever watched. You could look up at the scoreboard or see the box score the next morning, see that NCM had 18 pts and just sit there stunned, trying to remember where you were while this happened.
Too often people (I’m the most frequent offender) want to rip the team, especially NCM, after a bad loss (and they’ve had a lot of them in the past two years). But after doing that you felt immediate sorrow for the team, like yelling at a dog and then watching him droop his ears and tuck his tail between his legs.
A couple days ago, a friend of mine asked me how I’m going to remember Caner-Medley. And this is what I said: I’ll always remember him spending too much damn time on the baseline. So much so in fact that I thought he owed the Comcast Center rent every month. I remember, “I’m from Maryland, no one can beat me”. I’ll remember him having an awkward shot, but a reliable one. I’ll remember that time he out dueled Redick down in Cameron. I’ll remember him for never taking advantage of his size when smaller players guarded him. Most of all, I’ll remember when he broke his ankle in the 2003 NCAA tournament, and how I think that changed the rest of his career.
What would’ve happened if they could redo the 2004 season? What if Strawberry didn’t get hurt? What if Gilchrist didn’t get moody? What if we swept Clemson instead of the reverse happening? What if Garrison played the way he did overseas? What if Gary was more flexible with his style of coaching? That’s what the class of ’06 will be remembered for: What if?
Think the voting was rigged? Sound off to Chris DiIonno at cdiionno@dcmetrosports.com.
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U of Maryland 