Deonta Vaughn: The Big East MVP

Conferences choose the Player of the Year each season, which usually goes to the best player on the best team.  But what if it was MVP? 

Most Valuable Player. 

Which Big East team wouldn’t be anywhere close to where they are now without their best player?

It’s gotta be the surprising sixth place Cincinnati Bearcats. Sophomore guard Deonta Vaughn accounts for more than a third of his team’s points in Big East play. 

Vaughn averages 20.4 ppg in Big East games, which is second in the league.

The Indiana native ranks second in three point FGs made, third in FT shooting, seventh in three point FG pct. and 15th in total FG percentage (which is extremely impressive for a 6’1” guard who is always the focal point of the opponents’ defensive strategy). 

The Bearcats are 6-5 in the Big East, while being 2-14 in conference play last season, which easily could be a 7-4 mark but for blowing a 12-point lead with six minutes to play against red hot UConn on January 23.

By the way, Vaughn dropped 34 in that game, including a creamy 8-11 from beyond the arc. Vaughn comes up large in big games and, as shown again on Saturday, when it counts. Struggling at Rutgers, he was held to six points in regulation before erupting for 13 in the extra frame to help UC grab their third Big East road win (second most in the league, had zero last season).

Deonta scored 29 against Syracuse, 25 versus Villanova, 34 against Uconn, 18 at West Virginia and 23 versus Marquette, while putting up double figures in all eleven Big East games. 

Deonta Vaughn likely won’t win the Player of the Year, but he at least deserves to be on the Big East All-Conference First Team. He is the obvious MVP.