Here is my ballot for the All-ACC teams and other postseason accolades
All-ACC First Team
Player | School |
Marcus Paige | North Carolina |
T.J. Warren | NC State |
K.J. McDaniels | Clemson |
Malcom Brogdon | Virginia |
Jabari Parker | Duke |
All-ACC Second Team
Player | School |
Tyler Ennis | Syracuse |
C.J. Fair | Syracuse |
Joe Harris | Virginia |
Rodney Hood | Duke |
Lamar Patterson | Pittsburgh |
All-ACC Third Team
Player | School |
Olivier Hanlan | Boston College |
Aaron Thomas | Florida State |
James Michael McAdoo | North Carolina |
Rion Brown | Miami |
Talib Zanna | Pittsburgh |
All-Defensive Team
Player | School |
Marcus Paige | North Carolina |
C.J. Fair | Syracuse |
K.J. McDaniels | Clemson |
Joe Harris | Virginia |
Akil Mitchell | Virginia |
All-Freshman Team
Player | School |
Jabari Parker | Duke |
Tyler Ennis | Syracuse |
Kennedy Meeks | North Carolina |
London Perrantes | Virginia |
Devin Wilson | Virginia Tech |
Individual Awards
Player of the Year | T.J. Warren | NC State |
Rookie of the Year | Jabari Parker | Duke |
Defensive POY | K.J. McDaniels | Clemson |
Most Improved | Marcus Paige | North Carolina |
Sixth Man | Brice Johnson | North Carolina |
Coach of the Year | Tony Bennett | Virginia |
Caveats, apologies and explanations.
-T.J. Warren is the ACC Player of the Year. It really isn't a debate though I do understand some arguments could be made for other players. Warren ended the regular season with back-to-back 40 point games. The last time an ACC player went over 40 in consecutive games was 1957 when Lennie Rosenbluth and Grady Wallace(credit @jwgiglio) He had just two ACC games in which he scored less than 20 points and one in single digits. Warren did all of this with a highly suspect offense and being the focal point of opposing teams.
-All-ACC teams didn't hold a lot of mystery. Based on what my fellow media types have posted many of the names will be the same among the top 15 players just in a slightly different order.
-The All-Freshman voting was interesting because this wasn't a year that freshman really dominated outside of Tyler Ennis and Jabari Parker. London Perrantes was a key cog for Virginia's 16-2 run and Devin Wilson was outstanding on a bad Virginia Tech team. Kennedy Meeks gets the other spot not so much because he had a major impact but because the choices were pretty limited.
-All-Defensive team is very tough because it's difficult to quantify and on this team I am more than willing to accept any criticism. UVa gets two spots simply because the defense was that good. Clemson's K.J. McDaniels is obviously on the team since I also voted him defensive player of the year. I rounded it out with C.J. Fair and Marcus Paige. UNC finished the regular season 2nd in the ACC in three point FG% defense. Paige was a huge part of that.
-Jabari Parker for Rookie of the Year and Tony Bennett for Coach of the Year were obvious choices. Paige gets Most-Improved because the leap from last year to this year was simply incredible. And like the defensive team, picking a Sixth Man is just really odd. It was tough to find productive players off the bench or didn't end up starting half the games in ACC play or more. Brice Johnson came off the bench in 18 games and was key in several UNC wins.
For the record here is my criteria.
-ACC games only. The reasoning here is it provides an 18 game sample for every player that isn't identical because there is no round-robin but it also doesn't include four home games against teams ranked 250 or worse in KenPom
-Traditional and advanced stats are used with some leaning towards advanced. Why? The ACC is a slow-tempo league right now so purely looking at per game stats can be deceiving.
-Player performance is judged first then team performance is considered. Some people do this in reverse or give equal weight or even make team performance the overarching consideration which is why T.J. Warren won't be a unanimous.
-No animals were harmed in the filling out of this ballot.