Norman over at Rumble In The Garden, SB Nation's resident St. John's blog, put together another Big East blogger roundtable session and I was glad to again participate. We discussed lots, and here was my rundown.
Pitt's MVP: Nasir Robinson - As I explained in the session, picking an MVP for this team was difficult to say the least. But Nas has been the most consistent player and as the team's leading rebounder and hitting 56% of his shots, he was my pick.
Pitt's Most Disappointing Player: Ashton Gibbs - No explanation required.
Big East First Team: Kevin Jones, Jae Crowder, Darius Johnson-Odom, Jeremy Lamb, Herb Pope, Cleveland Melvin - My first four players were voted to the Big East's first team, so no oddities there. However, I placed Herb Pope on my first team, while he was only third team All Conference. Pope was the conference's second leading rebounder and other than Kevin Jones, was the only player in the Big East to average 15 points and ten rebounds a game. Seton Hall also was pretty successful in the conference.
Melvin was also kind of an oddball pick, but he was the sixth leading scorer in the Big East at the time of voting. He was also only a couple of tenths of a point from third place and is one of the dynamic scorers in the conference. I get the fact that he wasn't on a good team, but Melvin's a big time talent. And of the top ten scorers in the Big East, he's played the fewest minutes per game.
My conference awards are after the jump.
Big East Player of the Year: Kevin Jones - Jones was the best player I'd seen all year in the conference and is a fairly easy pick, in my opinion.Rookie of the Year: Moe Harkless - Harkless barely edged out teammate D'Angelo Harrison for my vote. Harrison scored a few more points, but Harkless was also the team's leading rebounder.
Coach of the Year: Jim Boeheim - Had I voted after South Florida's wins over Cincinnati and Louisville, I would have probably went with Stan Heath, but Boeheim is still a solid pick. Had Syracuse finished with three or four losses, Heath would have been a slam dunk in my opinion. But one loss? All season? That's too good to ignore.
Check out the full breakdown of everyone's votes over at Rumble in the Garden.
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