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Marcus Paige will be National Player of the Year -- College Basketball - ESPN
by John Gasaway
The 2014-15 season is now upon us, and thank goodness. It seems like a lifetime ago that Shabazz Napier was frolicking in the confetti in Arlington, Texas. I, for one, am ready to add some new hoops memories to the vault.
Being an impatient sort, however, I don't want to hold on to my observations until the actual season is, you know, played. I've chosen to be proactive and offer the following fearless predictions. Here's what I think we'll be seeing this season in college hoops ...
Marcus Paige will be national player of the year
I'm putting this prediction first because, strictly speaking, it has the best chance of being correct. Basically, predicting the national player of the year is much easier than picking the national champion, and way more forgiving than trying to go 4-for-4 on the teams that will play in the national semifinals.
Five of the last seven national POYs entered their award-winning campaigns as preseason first-team All-Americans. North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough (2007-08), Oklahoma's Blake Griffin (2008-09), Brigham Young's Jimmer Fredette (2010-11), Michigan's Trey Burke (2012-13) and Creighton's Doug McDermott (2013-14) all started their respective seasons as All-Americans and finished them as POYs. The only exceptions were Ohio State's Evan Turner in 2009-10 and Kentucky's Anthony Davis in 2011-12, both of whom were named national POYs despite not being preseason All-Americans.
If this trend continues, we can expect this season's POY to come from our preseason All-American team: UNC's Marcus Paige, Wichita State's Fred VanVleet, Louisville's Montrezl Harrell, Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky and Duke's Jahlil Okafor. I expect Harrell, Kaminsky and Okafor to post great but not unbelievable per-game numbers on offense due to the constraints imposed by talented teammates, a slow pace and limited minutes, respectively. That leaves Paige and VanVleet, and if the former doesn't win POY my best guess would be that the latter will. (Though I won't be absolutely shocked if both of these guys lose out to VanVleet's teammate Ron Baker.)
That being said, I'll go with Paige. Like Burke in 2012-13, Paige is a 6-foot-1 high-assist scoring guard playing for a national title contender in a major conference. That's as good a profile as any for winning a POY award.
Jay Wright will win coach of the year
The problem with coach of the year awards is that they take too little notice of the NCAA tournament. In retrospect, it's more than a little remarkable, for instance, that Butler's Brad Stevens took (what was then) a Horizon League program to back-to-back national title games without so much as a glance from the major COY award panels, but there you are. The COY award is based largely on what happens in conference play.
Another feature of COY balloting is that this particular honor is far more likely to be shared than is a POY award. Wichita State's Gregg Marshall recorded a clean sweep last season, but he was an outlier. Over the previous four seasons, all of the following members of the coaching fraternity received some form of national COY recognition: Miami's Jim Larranaga, Saint Louis' Jim Crews, Missouri's Frank Haith (now the coach at Tulsa), Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Kansas' Bill Self, Notre Dame's Mike Brey, San Diego State's Steve Fisher, Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Kentucky's John Calipari.
Compile the conference records posted by all those guys -- Marshall included -- in their COY seasons and you're confronted with a combined .839 winning percentage. And as I look at the college game this season and search for the coaches most likely to win at least 15 conference games, the three most promising candidates appear to me to be Marshall, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Villanova's Jay Wright.
Few's only problem here is he always wins a ton of games in the West Coast Conference, and for better or worse, COY panels seem to favor seasons that are a little less customary. As for the other two, Marshall's the incumbent and COY voters like to spread this wealth, so I'll go with the dapper gent in Philly this time around. (Coach Marshall's dapper too, mind you.)
The Wildcats return four starters from a team that won the Big East outright with a 16-2 record in 2014-15, and Wright doesn't have a Doug McDermott-led Creighton offense to worry about any more in terms of in-league competition. Nova stands a good chance of arriving at Selection Sunday with a really gaudy record, and those have traditionally been good predictors of national COY recognition. Start clearing a space on your mantel, Coach Wright.
Villanova, Gonzaga, Kentucky and Arizona will make the Final Four
Last year in the preseason, I picked Harvard to make the Final Four, and everyone went nuts. My point was simply that I expected some unexpected team to get to a national semifinal because, well, in non-2008 tournaments, some unexpected team usually does so.
And I was right! Well, except for the "Harvard" part. Connecticut won the national title as a No. 7 seed, and Kentucky got to the season's final 40 minutes from the No. 8 line. I call that unexpected, but apparently the custom with these preseason picks is to parrot your top four teams from your national rankings or something close to it.
Fair enough, I've learned my lesson. Here are four teams that will all have excellent chances of making the Final Four....
• Villanova: See "coach of the year," above. Wright has a perimeter-oriented rotation that can both defend the rim and force turnovers. In other words, the Wildcats are the team version of a matchup nightmare. I also expect that Darrun Hilliard will finally get the attention he deserves, quite possibly as the Big East POY.
• Gonzaga: The Bulldogs are the perfect example of a team that is confidently and universally classified as unable to mount a deep tournament run -- until it does. This could be the year for Few's men. A nucleus comprising Kevin Pangos, Gary Bell Jr., Kyle Wiltjer and Przemek Karnowski promises to be close to ideal in terms of inside-outside balance on offense. And the depth is significant.
• Kentucky: To repeat a belief I've voiced just in the past few days, UK projects to be fiendishly dominant on the offensive glass and brutally effective in the paint on defense. I certainly don't expect Calipari's men to be lights-out from the perimeter, but those other two virtues will serve both of the coach's platoons very well.
• Arizona: See "national championship," below.
Three of these four teams share a common nickname, so expect wacky headlines accordingly -- "WILDCAT STRIKE," perhaps. And if instead of Gonzaga it turns out that Northwestern joins those other three, the mascot convergence will be truly awe-inspiring.
Great, I can see it now: "Gasaway Picks Northwestern to Make Final Four!" Not true. Step away from the torch and pitchfork.
Arizona will win the national championship
After Brandon Ashley suffered his season-ending injury last February, a belief somehow gained currency that this admittedly still-amazing-on-defense Arizona team was somehow deficient offensively. Actually Sean Miller's team was still very good on that side of the ball, even without Ashley, scoring 1.07 points per possession over UA's last 10 Pac-12 games.
Now Ashley's back, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is an offensive rebound waiting to happen, Kaleb Tarczewski is poised to extend his automatic 2-point-making ways across many more shots, T.J. McConnell is downright Kendall Marshall-esque as a pass-first point guard and my colleague Myron Medcalf seems pretty pumped about freshman Stanley Johnson. I expect to see Ashley frolicking in the confetti at Lucas Oil Stadium come April.
by John Gasaway
The 2014-15 season is now upon us, and thank goodness. It seems like a lifetime ago that Shabazz Napier was frolicking in the confetti in Arlington, Texas. I, for one, am ready to add some new hoops memories to the vault.
Being an impatient sort, however, I don't want to hold on to my observations until the actual season is, you know, played. I've chosen to be proactive and offer the following fearless predictions. Here's what I think we'll be seeing this season in college hoops ...
Marcus Paige will be national player of the year
I'm putting this prediction first because, strictly speaking, it has the best chance of being correct. Basically, predicting the national player of the year is much easier than picking the national champion, and way more forgiving than trying to go 4-for-4 on the teams that will play in the national semifinals.
Five of the last seven national POYs entered their award-winning campaigns as preseason first-team All-Americans. North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough (2007-08), Oklahoma's Blake Griffin (2008-09), Brigham Young's Jimmer Fredette (2010-11), Michigan's Trey Burke (2012-13) and Creighton's Doug McDermott (2013-14) all started their respective seasons as All-Americans and finished them as POYs. The only exceptions were Ohio State's Evan Turner in 2009-10 and Kentucky's Anthony Davis in 2011-12, both of whom were named national POYs despite not being preseason All-Americans.
If this trend continues, we can expect this season's POY to come from our preseason All-American team: UNC's Marcus Paige, Wichita State's Fred VanVleet, Louisville's Montrezl Harrell, Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky and Duke's Jahlil Okafor. I expect Harrell, Kaminsky and Okafor to post great but not unbelievable per-game numbers on offense due to the constraints imposed by talented teammates, a slow pace and limited minutes, respectively. That leaves Paige and VanVleet, and if the former doesn't win POY my best guess would be that the latter will. (Though I won't be absolutely shocked if both of these guys lose out to VanVleet's teammate Ron Baker.)
That being said, I'll go with Paige. Like Burke in 2012-13, Paige is a 6-foot-1 high-assist scoring guard playing for a national title contender in a major conference. That's as good a profile as any for winning a POY award.
Jay Wright will win coach of the year
The problem with coach of the year awards is that they take too little notice of the NCAA tournament. In retrospect, it's more than a little remarkable, for instance, that Butler's Brad Stevens took (what was then) a Horizon League program to back-to-back national title games without so much as a glance from the major COY award panels, but there you are. The COY award is based largely on what happens in conference play.
Another feature of COY balloting is that this particular honor is far more likely to be shared than is a POY award. Wichita State's Gregg Marshall recorded a clean sweep last season, but he was an outlier. Over the previous four seasons, all of the following members of the coaching fraternity received some form of national COY recognition: Miami's Jim Larranaga, Saint Louis' Jim Crews, Missouri's Frank Haith (now the coach at Tulsa), Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Kansas' Bill Self, Notre Dame's Mike Brey, San Diego State's Steve Fisher, Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Kentucky's John Calipari.
Compile the conference records posted by all those guys -- Marshall included -- in their COY seasons and you're confronted with a combined .839 winning percentage. And as I look at the college game this season and search for the coaches most likely to win at least 15 conference games, the three most promising candidates appear to me to be Marshall, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Villanova's Jay Wright.
Few's only problem here is he always wins a ton of games in the West Coast Conference, and for better or worse, COY panels seem to favor seasons that are a little less customary. As for the other two, Marshall's the incumbent and COY voters like to spread this wealth, so I'll go with the dapper gent in Philly this time around. (Coach Marshall's dapper too, mind you.)
The Wildcats return four starters from a team that won the Big East outright with a 16-2 record in 2014-15, and Wright doesn't have a Doug McDermott-led Creighton offense to worry about any more in terms of in-league competition. Nova stands a good chance of arriving at Selection Sunday with a really gaudy record, and those have traditionally been good predictors of national COY recognition. Start clearing a space on your mantel, Coach Wright.
Villanova, Gonzaga, Kentucky and Arizona will make the Final Four
Last year in the preseason, I picked Harvard to make the Final Four, and everyone went nuts. My point was simply that I expected some unexpected team to get to a national semifinal because, well, in non-2008 tournaments, some unexpected team usually does so.
And I was right! Well, except for the "Harvard" part. Connecticut won the national title as a No. 7 seed, and Kentucky got to the season's final 40 minutes from the No. 8 line. I call that unexpected, but apparently the custom with these preseason picks is to parrot your top four teams from your national rankings or something close to it.
Fair enough, I've learned my lesson. Here are four teams that will all have excellent chances of making the Final Four....
• Villanova: See "coach of the year," above. Wright has a perimeter-oriented rotation that can both defend the rim and force turnovers. In other words, the Wildcats are the team version of a matchup nightmare. I also expect that Darrun Hilliard will finally get the attention he deserves, quite possibly as the Big East POY.
• Gonzaga: The Bulldogs are the perfect example of a team that is confidently and universally classified as unable to mount a deep tournament run -- until it does. This could be the year for Few's men. A nucleus comprising Kevin Pangos, Gary Bell Jr., Kyle Wiltjer and Przemek Karnowski promises to be close to ideal in terms of inside-outside balance on offense. And the depth is significant.
• Kentucky: To repeat a belief I've voiced just in the past few days, UK projects to be fiendishly dominant on the offensive glass and brutally effective in the paint on defense. I certainly don't expect Calipari's men to be lights-out from the perimeter, but those other two virtues will serve both of the coach's platoons very well.
• Arizona: See "national championship," below.
Three of these four teams share a common nickname, so expect wacky headlines accordingly -- "WILDCAT STRIKE," perhaps. And if instead of Gonzaga it turns out that Northwestern joins those other three, the mascot convergence will be truly awe-inspiring.
Great, I can see it now: "Gasaway Picks Northwestern to Make Final Four!" Not true. Step away from the torch and pitchfork.
Arizona will win the national championship
After Brandon Ashley suffered his season-ending injury last February, a belief somehow gained currency that this admittedly still-amazing-on-defense Arizona team was somehow deficient offensively. Actually Sean Miller's team was still very good on that side of the ball, even without Ashley, scoring 1.07 points per possession over UA's last 10 Pac-12 games.
Now Ashley's back, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is an offensive rebound waiting to happen, Kaleb Tarczewski is poised to extend his automatic 2-point-making ways across many more shots, T.J. McConnell is downright Kendall Marshall-esque as a pass-first point guard and my colleague Myron Medcalf seems pretty pumped about freshman Stanley Johnson. I expect to see Ashley frolicking in the confetti at Lucas Oil Stadium come April.
