All-ACC Awards

The ACC finished its regular season yesterday, capping a season with great depth, loaded with all-conference caliber players. Here are my picks. (The # in parenthesis is the score from my statistical model. See the Methodology section at the bottom.)

All-ACC First Team

1. Toney Douglas – FSU (67)
   
2. Ty Lawson – UNC (58)
   
3. Jeff Teague – Wake Forest (58)
   
4. Trevor Booker – Clemson (56)
   
5. Gerald Henderson – Duke (54)
   

I tried to base this on conference games only. What I like most about this list is that it honors the best player from each of the conference's top 5 teams. The first 4 were stellar all season long – in fact, the model picks Jeff Teague as the best player when we look at all games. Henderson really came on for Duke

All-ACC Second Team

1. Malcolm Delaney – Va Tech (54)
   
2. James Johnson – Wake Forest (53)
   
3. Tyrese Rice – BC (51)
   
4. Kyle Singler – Duke (48)
   
5. Tyler Hansbrough – UNC (47)
   

Hansbrough is the surprise here, as I'm sure he'll make the first team for the 4^th time. But his play, at least as measured by the stats, fell off enough in conference games to drop him. He gets hardly any blocks, especially for a big man. And his steals are way off from last year. I actually dropped a higher-ranked player to get TH on the 2^nd team, because I do feel he deserves at least that, and because there's not much statistically significance in scores just a few points apart.

All-ACC Third Team

1. Danny Green – UNC (50)
   
2. Jeff Allen – Va Tech (43)
   
3. Gani Lawal – Ga Tech (42)
   
4. AD Vassallo – Va Tech (41)
   
5. Jack McClinton – Miami (40)
   

McClinton is easily the most over-rated (by the media) player in the ACC. He scores in bunches, but doesn't contribute anywhere else, at least anywhere that we measure. If he makes the 1^st Team again, it will be an injustice, though not as ridiculous as last year's selection. The next 5 are: Greivis Vasquez, Wayne Ellington, Al-Farouq Aminu, Jon Scheyer, and Rakim Sanders.

The scores from the model really show how deep the ACC is this season. In most years, you'd only need to get into the mid-to-high 40s to make 1^st team, mid-to-high 30s for 2^nd team, and high 20s for 3^rd team.

Rookie of the Year

The media will probably select Sylven Landesberg of Virginia, since he is the high scorer among freshmen. But Al-Farouq Aminu of Wake Forest has had the better season. Pretty clearly, in my view. Aminu may have scored less, but he was a materially more efficient scorer, averaging 1.45 points-per-shot attempt, compared to Landesberg's 1.29 PPS. Even in Steals. Rebounds and Assists offsetting each other. Landesberg has a knack for getting to the FT line, a harbinger of an excellent career, but his team was the worst in the conference. Aminu, meanwhile, was a full-year starter for the #2 team in the conference, and one ranked in the top 10 nationally.

Coach of the Year

I expect Leonard Hamilton of FSU to win, and Al Skinner's BC team has had the biggest jump in conference wins (from 4 to 9), but I would vote for Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest. Gaudio should have won it last season (over Seth Greenberg of Virginia Tech). I really like what he has done with the Deacons in the aftermath of the death of Skip Prosser. After only 5 conference wins two seasons ago, Gaudio led the Deacons to 7-9 in 2008, and up to 11-5 this season.

Player of the Year

You might guess from the lists above that I'm selecting Toney Douglas of FSU as the ACC Player of the Year. And I am. Not only was he #1 in my model, but he was the conference's leading scorer, and was widely hailed as the best defender in the conference. Duke's Coach K called Douglas the best perimeter defender in the country. Ty Lawson has been awesome offensively for the Tar Heels, but his defense is not good. Douglas is the most complete player in the conference, and he deserves to be POY.

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Methodology

My statistical model looks at 8 categories: Points Scored, FG %, 3-pointers Made, Free Throws Made, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, and Blocks. Each player's result in each category is compared to the average of the league's top ~70 players. I do some math, and end up with a scoring scale that runs roughly from 0 (technically, several players are below zero, but that's not important) to 100. The best season I've recorded is Tim Duncan's senior year, when he pegged a 90.