I had fun with this last year, and I may do it as a full column in the paper, but I thought I'd do my NEC awards picks on here first. I'll give you my pick for each award, then who I think will win it, and some honorable mentions.
Player of the Year: Tony Lee, Robert Morris. This was tough, but here's my reasoning. Obviously it's between him and DeMario. DA leads the league in scoring, is sixth in rebounding and 11th in assists. Lee is 11th in points, third in rebounds and first in assists. I'm a big believer in all-around play being most important, so I average out the three categories. Lee averages 5th between the three stats (take each category, add them up and divide by 3), while DA averages sixth.
Slight edge to Lee, but still close. Throw in what he's meant to the the team that won the regular season crown and that he is in the top 10 in FG percentage, which DA isn't, and I give the nod to Lee. Honorable mention to Tristan and FDU's Sean Baptiste.
All Conference: Lee, DA, Tristan, Durell Vinson from Wagner and Baptiste (weird pick I know, but his numbers are huge).
Rookie of the Year: Ken Horton, CCSU. Easiest way to do this is look at the rookie of the week honors, which Horton won three times (including today) along with Central's Shemik Thompson. Quinnipiac won it four times, but with 3 different players. So it comes down to Horton and Shemik, and I'm going with Horton because of his versatility. I've kind of dubbed Shemik "Tristan in training," but Horton can score and is a dominant defensive presence at times, leading the NEC in blocked shots (including games on the road where he was denied some blocks he should have been credited for).
Honorable mention: Shemik, who won ROW honors in three of the year's final six weeks, and whose presence could be greatly missed on Thursday night if he's really a no go.
Coach of the year: Mike Rice, Robert Morris. My preseason pick wasn't everyone else's, so you can't go with the "he was supposed to win" approach. I'm big on the underrated job Milan Brown is doing at the Mount (does anyone want to play the Mount?) and was tempted to go there, but Rice has some big wins non-conference and didn't lose a road game in the NEC this year. Not one. That's the most stunning stat of the year to me. Howie Dickenman deserves tons of credit for what he's done with such a young team (just look at how far they've come in three months). So make Brown and Coach D the honorable mentions here.
Defensive player of the year: Tristan. I'm completely sold on this. If I'm a coach in this league and I need one stop, and I can pick my team, he's my first draft pick, so that's the rationale there.
Tourney thoughts:
I try and stay away from predicting results of games I cover, so I'll do it more generally. You have to like the Colonials at home, though they'll have a battle on their hands. Monmouth is the kind of team that causes fits in the tournament, but the cross-town rival might have been a harder draw, so either way it wouldn't have been a cakewalk. From there it's either The Mount, who pushed them to the brink in PA not long ago and who I've been touting for a month, or CCSU, and beating Dickenman in the tournament isn't easy.
This could be the second thing I've written that I have to apologize to Wagner for, but I could see it getting picked off. LIU is hot and can shoot, and even if the Seahawks roll there, they'd have either SH or the Mount to get through next. That's a lot of chances to get beat, and we know form won't hold all the way through.
Gun to my head I have to take RMU, but this will be interesting. I love March.
I just wish I could end this post with Time to the play the game. But we have to wait until Thursday night.
Quick final plug: I'll have several stories leading up to the game in the paper, working on a couple interesting things, and a full preview. I'll also be there on Thursday night, so check us out on Friday for full breakdowns of what happened. And remember, there's almost always longer and more detailed versions of what I write in the paper on NewBritainHerald.com
As my favorite high school coach said to me the other day... "thanks for letting me ramble."
No comments:
Post a Comment