Thursday, April 19, 2007

ACC Fan Blog Individual Awards


Player of the Year
Jared Dudley, Sr., Boston College


This was a close race between Dudley and the ACC’s leading scorer, Florida State Senior Al Thornton. Dudley, who finished second in scoring with 19.0 points per game, led the league in rebounding with 8.3 rebounds per game and finished fourth in the league in shooting. These are stats that would lead you to believe that Dudley is a post player, but he demonstrated his versatility by finishing 13th in the league in steals, 16th in free throw percentage, 21st in three pointers and assist to turnover ratio, and 22nd in assists. Dudley and his running mate Tyrese Rice combined to score 46.9 % of Boston College’s points in leading the Eagles to a three-way tie for third in the ACC’s final standings.

Freshman of the Year
Brandon Costner, NC State

First, let’s settle this once and for all. Under NCAA rules, Costner is a freshman. Yes, he played in five games last season, but the NCAA allows injured players to apply for a medical hardship waiver if they play in fewer than 20% of their team’s games. Even with the redshirt year, Costner is only 19 years old. Last year’s ACC Sportswriters selection for Freshman of the Year was 20 when he won the award. Costner, led all freshmen in scoring with 16.8 points per game and rebounding with 7.3 rebounds per game. Additionally, he proved to be an outside threat by hitting 1.7 three pointer per game. Perhaps the most impressive part of Costner’s season was the four days he spent in Tampa when he scored 30 points against Duke, 22 points against Virginia, 10 points against Virginia Tech, and 28 points against UNC during the Wolfpack’s run in the ACC Tournament.

Coach of the Year
Sidney Lowe, NC State

Going into the last 10 days of the season, this award was Dave Lietao’s to lose. Instead of wrapping up the top seed in the tournament, Virginia lost to Miami and Wake Forest to end up with the second seed. In the ACC Tournament, Virginia became a footnote in NC State’s run to the championship game. Sidney Lowe did an outstanding job in piloting an undermanned Wolfpack squad to a 20-16 record, and keeping them out of the league cellar. In a season that the NC State was selected to finish 12th Lowe coached the Wolfpack to a 5-4 record against the conference’s top three seeds. After an amazing run to the ACC Championship Game, the man in the red coat coached a weary team to wins against Drexel and Marist in the NIT. During an amazing nine-day stretch in March, the Wolfpack went 6 and 1… the stuff legends are made of.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is not Wright!!!!! Biased State Fans!!!

Ken White said...

I would have voted for Brandon Wright. He had a lot of HUGE games, but he also had some games where he just didn't show up at all. Let's just hope he sticks around to earn some honors.