Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
With conference tournaments starting, regular season superlatives are being handed out in college hoops conferences across the country. The SEC was among the many conferences dishing out its hardware today. There are some head-scratchers, to say the least.
SEC Player of the Year: John Wall, Kentucky
SEC Freshman of the Year: DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky
(/Checks UK roster.) OK, I'm not hallucinating. John Wall is still a freshman, right? He was just named the best player in the SEC. Logic would then dictate if he is the best player in the SEC, he's also the best freshman, right? Evidently not.
Moving from the plain nonsensical and silly to the catty and revealing, check out the coach of the year award:
SEC Coach of the Year: Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt
And a fine season for Vanderbilt so far this year. The Commodores are 23-7 and 12-4 in the SEC, which is good for second in the SEC East behind Kentucky. Keeping in mind that these awards are voted on by the coaches, it doesn't take a genius to see what's at work here: the SEC coaches flat-out do not like John Calipari. (Gary Parrish says as much on Twitter, and lumps Bruce Pearl, who dealt with an awful lot this year, into the same group.)
Love him or hate him, don't tell me Stallings "outcoached" Calipari this year. Stallings returned nine of his top 10 players from last year's team, including its four top scorers. You could say Stallings potentially had to combat complacency, but Calipari has taken a roster, completely remade it and integrated numerous first-year players seamlessly into a team that will have a No. 1 seed on Sunday. And I'd tend to side with Parrish on the subject of Pearl, who saw his team temporarily blown up thanks to the actions of a few irresponsible players. He might be more deserving than Stallings as well. Unless these guys know something we don't regarding how Calipari got to this point, it looks absolutely petty of them. (No full voting totals are available as far as I can tell, but I'd like to see if anyone actually voted for Calipari or Pearl.)
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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Conspiracy theory: SEC coaches were not about to hand hardware to a newbie, especially not to one they expect will be at a different university when sanctions are handed to UK.
It is easy to award Stallings the title in the name of "did more with less." I would not consider the ’Dores more talented than UK, regardless of the numbers coming back. Not to mention Vandy has to play in that gym every home game.
Player of the year should have been Downey. That guy ran around with a fistful of dynamite every game, and he was only too happy to toss it in your face.
by guardian of the galaxy on Mar 9, 2010 9:44 PM EST reply actions
Ummmm, maybe Cal didn’t win coach of the year because I could roll a ball out to those paid in full ringers and win 27 games this year by yelling "Okay guys, go play basketball."
by bkweeks55 on Mar 10, 2010 1:34 PM EST reply actions
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