Post Season Awards, March Madness, and the Media

With the NCAA men’s basketball tournament beginning a little more than a week, the post-season awards are beginning to flutter in. As with the majority of awards, there are many deserving players and someone always gets snubbed. This year has been no exception.

When the Pacific-10 Conference post-season awards were announced yesterday, I was satisfied but not thrilled with the all the results, particularly with the individual honors. The coaches vote on the winners and I’m not exactly sure how the final results are tabulated, but I would assume that each gets a first, a second, and a third place vote.

I’ll start with the two awards that I agree with:

Pac-10 Coach of the Year: Tony Bennett, Washington State.

Absolutely. No Doubter. Start up the plane, help me make the connection in Spokane, warm up the bus, take me on a two-hour drive me past the farmhouses, through the fields and I’ll be the first to shake his hand.

No. The first-year Cougar head coach has no relation to the singer, however he had the people of Pullman rocking. Every Thursday and Saturday they would pack a gym and watch WSU battle legitimately for a Pac-10 title. The Cougars were picked to finish last in the conference and ended up second at 24-6.

A team of no-names, became bunch that hounded their opponents defensively and were able to score just enough to win. Derrick Low and Kyle Weaver were named to the Pac-10 first team as WSU was 8-4 in games decided by six points or fewer.

Pac-10 Freshman of the Year: Chase Budinger, forward, Arizona. Budinger, who was also considered the top volleyball player in America, brought his leaping ability and sweet shooting touch to the Wildcats this season. He ranked 7th in the Pac-10 in scoring (15.8 ppg) and 12th in rebounding (5.9 per game). Possible snubs: Spencer Hawes, center Washington. Hawes averaged 15.2 ppg and 6.3 rebounds, but had health problems in the middle of the season that hindered his performance).

Now, let the rant to begin.

Pac-10 Player of the Year: Arron Affalo, guard, UCLA. If the Pac-10 coaches were casting their vote for the “best player in the Pac-10,” they got it wrong. If the coaches voted for the “most valuable player in the Pac-10” they got it wrong.
However, if they simply voted for the best player on the top team in the Pac-10, well, that’s fine, but it’s no way to decide the player of the year. It should go to the greatest all around player in the Pac-10. That’s not Affalo, it’s USC swingman Nick Young.

Reason one: basic statistics.

Nick Young ranks 2nd in the Pac-10 in scoring (17.5 ppg.) Afflalo is 3rd (17.2). Young is 5th in goal percentage (53%) and the players who are ranked ahead of him are power forwards and centers. Afflalo shoots 47%. Young places 4th in 3-point percentage (44%). Afflalo 12th (39%). Young also averages more rebounds (4.5) to (2.5).

Reason two: game performance and consistency. There is no breakdown of the coaches’ votes just yet. But, I would have to think that they would certainly remember the players that gave their teams a hard time. Granted, Afflalo and Young are just two players and there could have been others, but they are my focus and I’m sticking to it.

Lute Olsen, Arizona head coach, certainly remembered when Young scored 30 points on 13 for 19 shooting in the first meeting of the year between the Trojans and Wildcats. If he wasn’t convinced, perhaps Young’s 26-point effort at the Arizona McHale Center on 9 of 13 shooting got him thinking. Afflalo was also respectable against the Wildcats, scoring 22 and 15 points, but not good enough.

Lorenzo Romar, Washington coach, had to be impressed with Afflalo after his 27 point outburst against the Huskies in December at Pauley Pavilion. However, Lorenzo must have been relieved last week to see Afflalo score 12 points on 4 of 14 shooting against the same Husky team. Young was much more consistent against Washington, scoring 25 points in the first meeting and 26 on 11 for 15 shooting in the second.

In the first head-to-head meeting Afflalo and Young had similar stats, and each made a clutch basket in the closing seconds, with Afflalo getting game winner at the Galen Center. However, in the second match-up at UCLA Young was superior. He scored 20 points on 9 of 12 shooting. Afflalo was 3 for 11 for 16 points, nine of which came from the free-throw line in the closing seconds.

I can keep comparing statistics, but stats can only go so far. I think Nick Young has been short changed this year because the news media doesn’t really focus on USC basketball because they are not yet the a national powerhouse. Awards are somewhat skewed because of media coverage.

For example, UCLA was playing Washington last weekend on CBS. Even though Afflalo was having an awful game, CBS put up a graphic that mentioned Afflalo as a possible Wooden Award Winner (national player of the year). The announcers said “Oh, yeah he’s maybe one of the top five players in the country.” I asked myself, how can Afflalo be considered a top-five player if he is arguably not even the best player in his own conference?

The answer is simple. UCLA gets more national media coverage. People see Afflalo, see that he is a great player, and because he plays for a great team, he is automatically put in the conversation as one the “best in the country.” The argument is the same when talking about USC football. Some USC players are over-hyped because they play for USC.

However, in a little more than a week, the nation will get a glimpse at Nick Young and other players like him who don’t get to show off their skills to the nation on a regular basis. That is the beauty of the NCAA Tournament. “March Madness” is a media spectacle and almost every team receives coverage, regardless of how small they are. In the coming days I will offer more analysis of the exact media coverage.