ACC Coach of the year

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/S...id=1137834258880&path=!sports&s=1037645509200

SLAM DUNKS: ACC awards should be obvious this season

The ballots for the ACC's annual postseason awards aren't due for another 11 days, and the results won't be announced until the week of the ACC Tournament.

But it's not too early to make a few points and examine what these awards should be about, and what they have so often turned into.

The ACC coach of the year, player of the year, and rookie of the year should be precisely that. The awards should go to the ones who did the best job, the ones who had the most success. They should be the ones who got it done, because ultimately it's about winning, and it's about performance.

This shouldn't be about the ones who did better than someone expected before the season started. It should be about achievement, not improvement.

Duke's J.J. Redick is clearly the ACC's player of the year.

North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough is clearly the ACC's rookie of the year.

And along those same lines, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski is clearly the ACC's coach of the year. Since there won't be much debate about Redick and Hansbrough but there will be plenty of debate about Krzyzewski, let's look at that award specifically.

Krzyzewski has done the best coaching job in the ACC this season because Duke is 25-1 going into tonight's game at Georgia Tech, and it has already wrapped up first place in the regular-season standings, and it is now just three wins from becoming only the eighth team in the ACC's 53-year history to go undefeated in league play and the second to go 16-0.

That's what every coach in the league dreamed of doing when practice started in October - or for that matter, back when they were watching 15-year-olds playing in AAU games years ago and setting the table for what would happen this season.

Krzyzewski has gotten the job done this year, with the same number of scholarships that everyone else gets. Until there comes a day when the coach of the preseason favorite is disqualified from receiving the award, the coach who wins it all - especially a coach who laps the field - is the one who did the best job.

There is already strong sentiment elsewhere for North Carolina's Roy Williams, and Virginia's Dave Leitao, and even N.C. State's Herb Sendek. They've all done fabulous jobs. What Williams has done with a young UNC team, after losing seven players, is phenomenal. What Leitao has done in making Virginia competitive again in his first season is admirable. Sendek has his best team yet and has the inside track on second place. But it's still second place. The guy in first is Coach K.

Bow down to the great Roy. Give Leitao a contract extension. Apologize to Herb for all the grief he has taken. But don't equate the jobs they've done with the job that Krzyzewski has done, because if you diminish his accomplishments against a watered-down league in an off year, you also diminish what they are doing, too.

This notion that Duke was loaded and was "supposed to win" should have no merit in determining the coach of the year. This notion that anybody could win with Redick and Shelden Williams and a bunch of McDonald's All-Americans is a cop-out, and it naively suggests that Coach K didn't have anything to do with turning Redick and Williams into great players.

The ACC coach of the year should be the one who has succeeded the most in all areas in that given season: recruiting, teaching, motivating, disciplining, scouting, game-planning and reacting and adjusting during games. And working the refs, too, if you think that's the key to a coach's success.

Sure, Duke came into this season as the preseason favorite. But if you break it down, Krzyzewski had a freshman point guard (Greg Paulus), a senior sharpshooter (Redick), a senior big man (Shelden Williams) and some veteran role players. And he's 25-1. Wake Forest came into the season No. 3 in those preseason polls, and Skip Prosser had a freshman point guard, and a senior sharpshooter, and a senior big man, and veteran role players, etc. And Wake Forest is 1-11 in the league.

So isn't it better to base ACC coach of the year on production than on preseason projections and perceived talent? The only time this vote should get overly subjective is when there are ties in the standings or where there are significant mitigating factors, not when there is a three- or four-game gap between the best and the rest.

Maybe it's true that the keys to Krzyzewski's success were the decisions of Redick and Shelden Williams to return for their senior seasons. If so, give Krzyzewski some credit for that, too. Krzyzewski created an atmosphere in which those players felt that it was more important to come back and try to win a national championship than it was to leave early for the NBA. They knew that Krzyzewski would continue to push them to become better, and they believed they had a chance to win it all this year because of Krzyzewski's coaching and recruiting ability.

It's Coach K, in every way

Roy Williams wouldn't be doing a marvelous job with a bunch of freshmen had his upperclassmen decided to come back and try for a second straight national championship. He would be doing a marvelous job with a team that would be viciously battling Duke for the No. 1 national ranking right now, instead of battling for third place four games behind Duke.

If Prosser had created an environment in which winning an NCAA title was more important than jumping to the pros after two years, maybe Chris Paul would still be at Wake Forest. But then, since Wake Forest doesn't play defense, would Paul have ever had any realistic expectation of winning the NCAA title the way that Redick and Shelden Williams do?

Leitao has done a wonderful job at Virginia. But maybe Virginia shouldn't have been picked so low in the preseason. Maybe Virginia's success verifies how much Pete Gillen had lost control of the program. So let out a big Wahoo for the job he has done. But no coach in a three-way tie for fifth place and is three games over .500 overall is doing a better job than the guy who's 25-1.

No other category is judged by what was "supposed to happen."

It would be ludicrous to suggest that Redick was supposed to play well, and that Al Thornton is better than people realized in October, and therefore Thornton should be the ACC player of the year instead of Redick.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that Hansbrough was a five-star recruit who was supposed to play well, whereas Lewis Clinch has played better than anyone expected, and therefore Clinch should be rookie of the year.

That logic would never fly. So why does anyone try to make it fly when it comes to voting for the coach of the year?

Here's one to ponder. Dean Smith was the ACC coach of the year only seven times in his 36-year career. UNC went 26-5 in 1972, finished first in the ACC standings, won the ACC Tournament, went to the Final Four. And the ACC coach of the year that year was Bill Gibson of Virginia. Gibson was that year's version of Leitao, getting votes because he finished higher than expected.

Krzyzewski has been ACC coach of the year only five times in 24 seasons. Sendek, Prosser and even Seth Greenberg have been ACC coach of the year since Krzyzewski last received the award six years ago. But Krzyzewski has won five ACC titles in the past six years and has been either first or second in the regular-season standings four times. This season makes it five times.

Again, who has really done the best job?

 

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read.

It isn't about who has the best record.

 

What should it be about Clay? Doesn't it taking coaching to develop players? Doesn't it take coaching to recruit? It sure as hell takes coaching to win. If it is only about exceeding expections, then it is Leitao in a landslide. Virginia was picked to finish 12th. UNC was picked 6th.

 

Last year when it was expected for UNC to be solid, you said K should win it over Roy because he did less with more. This year now that K is expected to do a lot you say the team with the best record should get it. Will you make your mind up Homer?

 

Where did I say the team with the best record should get it? We are talking about a team with a good chance to go 16-0 (again). And finish 3 full games ahead of the rest of the field. Roy did not go 16-0 last year or finish that far ahead of anyone else. Roy doesn't deserve it by any standard. If it is exceeding expectations then Leitao wins.

 

Will you please post this link or at least make something up like you always do.

 

Because it's called "Coach of the Year". Not "Coach of the Last Four Years".

I'd give K the "Last Man Standing" award, since he's actually got real talent coming back from last year, whereas UNC, WF and GT have all lost some of their top players.

I could buy Leitao winning COY. Even Herb winning it. I think Roy should get it, considering what he's done with 4 role players from last year and 4 freshmen, but K has 2 dominant players with a lot of experience and a couple more seniors who contribute a great deal.

If you put anybody else in the head coach position with Reddick and Williams, along with some decent role players, he's going to have to a very successful season.

Coach of the Year is based on the body of work for a single year. He's gotten limit production from his recruits this year, though I expect McBob and Paulus will be forces in the future. It's not like Reddick and Williams made huge leaps from last year, so "player development" really isn't a huge consideration. He walked into the season fully loaded, and not dominating would be considered a disappointment, especially with it being a "down" season for the ACC.

 

Tell that to Prosser who has dominant All American caliber players in the exact same positions and a bunch or role players. The team fielded at the beginning of the year is a product of coaching. If you throw out everything before this year then there should be absolutely no preseason expectations. Your remarks are ridiculous.

 

Your remarks are what is ridiculous.

Skip Prosser does not have "dominant All American caliber players in the exact same positions". He's got Justin Gray, who in all honesty could not carry JJ's jock (it pains me to say that), who is also trying to playing point guard, and he's got Eric Williams, who isn't quite as good as Shelden. More to the point, they WF has a huge gaping hole at PG, where as Duke at least has Paulus, who is actually putting up decent numbers.