ACC Fan Blog All Conference Teams

As promised, we have waited until the conclusion of the post season to announce the ACC Fan Blog All Conference Teams. Many of you may be thinking that it is a bit late to announce our selections, but keep this in mind; the deadline for The Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association (ACC Sportswriters) All Conference ballots was 9:00 pm on the final Sunday of the regular season… less than 2 hours after the conclusion of the UNC-Duke game. To us, it just didn’t make sense to honor the ACC’s best until the best part of the season was over. This season, eight of Carolina’s 38 games were played after the conclusion of the regular season. Would any of you make a key business decision while missing 21% of the facts?

Today we are announcing our all conference and all freshman teams. Tomorrow we will follow up with our individual awards.

First Team
Jared Dudley, Sr., Boston College
Al Thornton, Sr., Florida State
Zabian Dowdell, Sr., Virginia Tech
Tyler Hansbrough, So., UNC
Sean Singletary, Jr., Virginia

OK, so we selected the same first team as the ACC Sportswriters. Simply put, these five players dominated league play by scoring 10.4% of the leagues points and pulling down 7.3% of the league’s rebounds. All five led their teams in scoring and on average scored 24.1% of their teams’ points. All of our first team selections were among the league’s top seven scorers with Thornton leading the way with 19.7 points per game. Dudley, Hansbrough and Thornton were also in the top six in field goal percentage and the top eight in rebounding. Singletary, who tied with Dudley for second in scoring, also finished second in three-pointers and fifth in assists. Dowdell finished second in steals and 11th in assist to turnover ratio.

Second Team
Brandon Costner, Fr., NC State
Tyrese Rice, So., Boston College
Brandan Wright, Fr., UNC
J.R. Reynolds, Sr., Virginia
Josh McRoberts, So., Duke


Our second team would make a pretty good first team in most years. Brandan Wright led the league in field goal percentage at 64.6%. Rice and Reynolds were both in the top six in scoring. McRoberts who was second in blocked shots, third in rebounding and in the top 20 in assists and assist to turnover ratio, was hurt by Duke’s 8-8 ACC regular season and 0-2 post season. The only departure we had from the ACC Sportswriters’ second team was to replace D.J. Strawberry with Brandon Costner. In comparing the stats, we felt that Costner had a slight edge on Strawberry, but when comparing post season performance, there was no question that Costner deserved a spot on the second team.

Third Team
Kyle Visser, Sr., Wake Forest
Ben McCauley, So., NC State
Sean Marshall, Sr.,Boston College
D.J. Strawberry, Sr., Maryland
Ty Lawson, Fr., UNC


With our third team we really departed from the ACC Sportswriters. For starters, Ty Lawson was selected of over Georgia Tech’s Javaris Crittenton. The two were evenly matched statistically with Crittenton holding an edge in scoring assists while Lawson was slightly better in field goal percentage and assist to turnover ratio. We felt that Lawson deserved the spot based on Carolina’s first place regular season and ACC Tournament Championship. We also felt that McCauley who finished second in field goal percentage, was in the top ten in rebounding and in the top twenty in scoring, assists and assist to turnover ratio was a no-brainier selection for the third team. Marshall was selected based on his top twenty finishes in scoring, field goal percentage and three-pointers. Visser, who was the only Wake Forest player to score in double figures, finished second in field goal percentage, fifth in rebounding, seventh in blocked shots and eighth in scoring. Strawberry, who was fourth in the league in steals, also finished in the top 11 in scoring and field goal percentage.

Honorable Mention
Engin Atsur, Sr. NC State
Ekene Ibekwe, Sr., Maryland
Javaris Crittenton, Fr., Georgia Tech
James Mays, Jr., Clemson
James Gist, Jr., Maryland
K.C. Rivers, So., Clemson


All Freshman Team
Brandon Costner, NC State
Brandan Wright, UNC
Ty Lawson, UNC
Javaris Crittenton, Georgia Tech
Thadeus Young, Georgia Tech


Honorable Mention
Trevor Booker, Clemson

Costner led all freshmen in scoring at 16.8 points per game, placing ninth overall in league scoring. Additionally, he finished in the top ten in field goal percentage. Crittenton and Young both led Georgia Tech in scoring at 14.4 points per game. Crittenton placed in the league’s top three in steals and assists, while Young was seventh in field goal percentage. Lawson, who had the leagues best assist to turnover ratio at 2.57, also finished in the top ten in assists and steals. Wright, who led the league in field goal percentage, was also sixth in blocked shots.