While conferences began announcing their official recipients of conference awards over the weekend, we here at GetMoreSports.com felt it necessary to correct a number of wrongs and issue our own postseason awards.
Let’s start with our major conference awards:
Pac-12:
Leading the Arizona Wildcats to the regular season title for a second straight year, Sean Miller is our Coach of the Year. Miller has done a remarkable job in bringing talent to Tucson, while also convincing them to play his style of defense.
Our Player of the Year is his point guard, T.J. McConnell. There are others with better statistics, but McConnell was the most important player on the conference’s best team, and that’s enough to earn my vote.
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Big 12:
This season was nothing short of a tremendous coaching job by Bob Huggins at West Virginia, earning him our vote for Coach of the Year. Picked to finish eighth, the Mountaineers finished in the fourth spot with Baylor tied at 11-7, but were just two games out of first place.
Georges Niang at Iowa State is our Player of the Year, while Buddy Hield came in a very close second place. Niang was the most important piece for Iowa State, the conference’s second best team, while affecting the game in more ways and at a more efficient rate than Hield.
Big Ten:
Bo Ryan certainly has a claim to this title, but we went with Maryland’s Mark Turgeon as Coach of the Year, as he brought the Terps along faster than many saw possible, finishing second in the conference and beating Wisconsin in College Park.
As for Player of the Year, it wasn’t close: Frank Kamisnky.
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SEC:
Surprise, surprise. Kentucky went ahead and swept these awards thanks to their undefeated regular season, with John Calipari winning Coach of the Year and Willie Cauley-Stein taking home Player of the Year.
ACC:
In a conference where being a Hall of Fame coach hardly makes you unique, Tony Bennett is our Coach of the Year. Virginia held on to win the conference title without star Justin Anderson, and have nearly locked themselves into a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.
As for Player of the Year, Jahlil Okafor takes home the award. Okafor was the conference’s best player by a wide margin for much of the season, especially once Anderson went down for Virginia.
Big East:
We’ve said it all season, no coach gets less press and praise for his accomplishments than Jay Wright. Perhaps it’s because his teams have fizzled out in the Big Dance? We don’t know, but we do have him as our Coach of the Year.
There were a number of contenders for this spot, but LaDontae Henton is our Player of the Year. Henton led the conference in scoring, and also chipped in a cool 6.3 rebounds per game for Providence.
