Maryland Basketball Nearly Sweeps 2009-2010 ACC Awards Season

(Update, March 9:  In the words of the immortal Meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad. At about 1 p.m. today the news came down...Greivis Vasquez is ACC Player of the Year and Gary Williams is Coach of the Year. Jordan Williams finished second to Derrick Favors in the rookie vote. Terrific accomplishments for all three of these Terps. We'll see this weekend if they can make it four for five.)

As you know, Duke and Maryland are your regular season ACC co-champs. But with March just underway, and with the Oscars still fresh in our minds ("The Hurt Locker" is overrated, by the way), the trophy factory is just getting warmed up. Several other ACC awards—for teams and individuals—are up for grabs this week.

This year's awards season has the potential to be particularly exciting. Perhaps even, dare I say, history-making. Because Maryland may have a shot to pull off the clean sweep.

The ACC's major individual awards are player of the year, coach of the year, and rookie of the year. Agreed? Great. The major team honors, of course, are regular season and tournament champs. Winning all five of these awards would be an unprecedented accomplishment. Before ROY was established in 1976, North Carolina, Wake Forest, and Duke all won the conference, COY, and POY in the same year. But since then, the brooms have remained in the closet. Several teams have gotten close; the last to get four out of five was the 1999-2000 Blue Devils, who were thwarted when Joe Forte(!) nabbed ROY.

But this week, the Terps have a decent chance to get it done, although it won't be easy. Let's analyze their chances, starting with the highest probability of success:

Regular season title  

Done.  Yep, this is about as high-probability as you can get.

Coach of the Year

The ACC preseason media poll had Maryland finishing fifth. They finished tied for first. No one had them sniffing the national top 25. They are currently in the top 20. The team was shaky early but righted the ship and tore through the ACC to finish 23-7 (13-3 in conference). Their offense has improved.  Their defense has massively improved. Under Williams' tutelage, top player Greivis Vasquez has vanquished various demons to flourish in his senior season. Jordan Williams went from afterthought to ROY candidate (more on him below). If you have a better option for ACC COY, I'd love to hear it.

Player of the Year

This case has been made many times in many places, so I won't rehash it. Just think about how Greivis Vasquez and Maryland finished out the season. Then look at the numbers (one stat not on there:  Vasquez leads Jon Scheyer in rebounds per game, 4.6 to 3.5). Barring a Roy Jones redux, Vasquez is your 2009-2010 POY.

ACC Tournament Champions

Clearly the big tamale of the group. Unless my name is Helen Mirren (who is hot, by the way, just to give some credit where it's due, if not especially relevant), Georgia Tech will be Maryland's second-round matchup this Friday. The Yellow Jackets are surely still "stinging," if you will, from their "buzz"er beater loss to the Terps. And after losing to Va. Tech over the weekend, they'll need this win if they want to go dancing.

If the Terps win that one, they'll likely get Florida State or Clemson. Interestingly, both teams have won five of their last seven and are projected as eight seeds in the dance.

In the final, they'd be looking at Duke. So it goes. It's a tough row to hoe, but not prohibitively so. This site gives Maryland a 19.4 percent chance. Sounds about right.

Rookie of the Year

The toughest leg of the gauntlet. Credit Jordan Williams, though, for making this a two-man race, considering the other man, Derrick Favors, was on several preseason watch lists for national as well as ACC honors and is an NBA lottery lock whenever he comes out. Williams, by comparison, has played his way into the conversation by gradually evolving into an inside force. In other words, one has underacheived a bit, the other has overacheived. (Not to mention that one of their teams finished 13-3 in the ACC and one team finished 7-9.)

To be fair, though, stats don't lie, and Favors has a clear (although not necessarily definitive) advantage. Favors scores 11.9 ppg, while Williams gets 9.3. Favors is third in the ACC with 8.4 rebounds per game; Williams is fourth with 8.3. Favors has two blocks per game, while Williams has one. In their only head-to-head matchup this season, Favors won the individual battle with a monstrous 21 and 18; Williams finished with a respectable 9 and 12, although his team won the game. So Favors clearly has the numbers edge, but Williams is an interesting dark horse because he has overacheived and his team has fared much better.

So there you have it. As always, only time will tell. But it seems Maryland has the best shot to sweep the ACC awards as any team in recent memory.

(This article, along with plenty of other Terps news and "analysis," is posted at www.shell-games.com )