When in doubt, celebrate greatness.
That’s been one of my most important and reliable rules of thumb since 1988, the first time I voted on Atlantic Coast Conference basketball honors.
Often, the votes are obvious, but every year there are some close calls. Occasionally, there are two or more perfectly deserving candidates for an individual award, and I think that’s the case for at least two — and perhaps more — of the most prominent ACC honors (i.e., Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year) here in 2022. The ballot, whether paper in the old days or online for decades now, will accept only one name for each of those categories, of course.
I personally directed the (independent) All-ACC voting for the ACC Sports Journal and ACCSports.com for more than 20 years, while also participating in the official voting, which is now done by a combination of the league’s 15 head coaches and 60 media members. Each voter has his or her own logic or approach, but they typically combine into a clear consensus.
While there are nonsensical ballots cast every year (I’ve seen them with my own eyes), they almost always are drowned out and made irrelevant by the more objective, knowledgeable, paying-attention, level-headed, we-watch-more-than-one-team-regularly majority.
The only times I’ve felt something beyond polite disagreement with an actual award winner came when mediocrity — rather than something truly great — was celebrated by voters. There is always a better option. Always.
For example, since 1975, every ACC Player of the Year except one has come from a team that was in position to play in the NCAA Tournament at the time of the vote. (Remember, votes are due the weekend before the ACC Tournament begins, and thus well before Selection Sunday.) Similarly, since the NCAA Tournament lifted its one-team-per-league rule in 1974, only a few ACC Coach of the Year honors have gone to men whose teams ended up missing the Big Dance.
When the media, over my and others’ objections, gave the Player of the Year honor to Erick Green of last-place Virginia Tech in 2013, the coaches (who voted separately back then) voted instead for point guard Shane Larkin of first-place Miami, which went on to win the ACC title. Green was a wonderful player, but he was putting up huge numbers in mostly meaningless games, away from the pressure that comes with the spotlight. Larkin’s numbers weren’t nearly as impressive, but his high-level production was central to his team’s high-level success.
Similarly, Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner won the 2017 ACC Coach of the Year honor … after finishing 11th in a 15-team league! The Yellow Jackets’ 8-10 conference record definitely was better than the media projected for them in the preseason that year, and that was a nice accomplishment and an admirable story, but there were six ACC coaches who built top-25 teams that year. None of those guys was more deserving of such special, historical recognition? Indeed, most of them were.
When voters kowtow to the you’re-not-as-horrible-as-we-guessed-months-ago mindset, rather than being equally as alert for great coaching jobs among the more prominent teams, you sometimes end up with ridiculous results. E.g., Mike Krzyzewski, one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, has more National Coach of the Year awards (six) than ACC Coach of the Year honors (five), and he hasn’t won the latter since 2000.
Coach of the Year
Steve Forbes, Wake Forest
If Duke beats UNC this weekend, Coach K will be a worthy candidate, too. Going 17-3 in conference play is hard, even if you were the preseason ACC favorite. Going 27-4 overall, with wins over fellow national title contenders Gonzaga and Kentucky, also is hard, even if you have more first-round NBA prospects than the rest of your conference’s teams combined.
Those most special conference records — 12-2 or better back when it was a 14-game schedule, 17-3 or better in the current 20-game format, etc. — automatically deserve consideration, especially after regular seasons in which there was significant nonconference success, as well.
Routinely high expectations didn’t prevent UNC legend Dean Smith from winning the COY honor a record eight times. Four of those awards came when the Tar Heels went 12-2 or 14-2 in conference play. Similarly, three of Coach K’s honors came when the Blue Devils had truly spectacular conference records: 12-2, 15-1, 16-0.
Forbes, though, exemplified greatness, too, and that’s not even a slight exaggeration. Even if you place little to no weight on the media’s preseason projection of a 13th-place finish for the Demon Deacons, as I do, the 2021-22 Wake Forest story is one worth celebrating.
Interestingly, by the way, all of the top contenders for 2022 ACC coach of the year are coming off horrible seasons. Among Duke (10th in the ACC), Notre Dame (11th), Miami (13th) and Wake Forest (14th), only the Blue Devils, at 13-11 overall, even had a winning record in 2021.
Wake Forest finished this regular season 23-8 and 13-7 in the ACC, which will give the Demon Deacons either a fourth-place tie with Miami or fifth place all to themselves. (In my eyes, fifth place in a 15-team league is the rough equivalent of third place in the old nine-team ACC or fourth place in a 12-team ACC.) Because of the relevant tiebreakers, the Deacons will be the fifth seed at the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn. At this moment, they’re projected by most bracketologists to end up on the right side of the March Madness bubble on Selection Sunday.
Wake’s 10-game improvement in conference victories, from a 3-15 record a year ago to 13-7 this time, represents the largest jump for any team from one season to the next in the 69-year history of the ACC. That’s hard, and that’s special.
Moreover, Forbes made that amazing leap with mostly new players. Unlike Miami or Notre Dame, which each had four key returnees who had played a lot of basketball together, Wake Forest has five newcomers in its top-seven rotation. Forbes was starting his team chemistry almost from scratch, and somehow he made it happen. That’s hard, and that’s special.
Finally, and perhaps most impressively, Forbes built a likely NCAA Tournament team largely on the shoulders of a little-known transfer who had averaged only SIX POINTS PER GAME during his two previous college seasons. Alondes Williams wasn’t even a full-time starter at Oklahoma, but now he’s the favorite for ACC Player of the Year. Williams deserves the majority of the credit for his story, of course, but Forbes clearly saw something special in Williams, and built something special around Williams, in ways others did not. That’s hard, and that’s special.
It takes great coaching to smoothly blend five newcomers with two key returnees. It takes great coaching to elevate players out of a downtrodden mindset (four straight miserable seasons at Wake) into an environment filled with optimism and hope. It takes great coaching, even after the talents of Williams and first-team All-ACC candidate Jake LaRavia became clear, to put the pieces of a brand-new puzzle together in a manner that maximized this team’s potential.
In the movie “A League Of Their Own,” baseball manager Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) is perhaps most remembered for his “there’s no crying in baseball” monologue. I’ve always appreciated another of his best rants, spoken to an I’m-quitting star player, even more.
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it,” Dugan said. “THE HARD IS WHAT MAKES IT GREAT.”
What Forbes and Krzyzewski accomplished with their teams during the regular season was really hard, in different ways and for different reasons, and that’s exactly what makes both stories so impressive. A Coach of the Year vote for either would be well-earned.
Other viable candidates: Mike Krzyzewski, Duke; Mike Brey, Notre Dame; Jim Larranaga, Miami; Hubert Davis (only with a win at Duke), UNC.
Freshman of the Year
Paolo Banchero, Duke
This year’s freshmen allow for a majority of the easiest votes on this year’s All-ACC ballot.
Banchero is one of the top college rookies in the country, and for the majority of this season he’s been the best player on the best team in the ACC.
The United States Basketball Writers Association, for which I vote on national honors, sponsors the Wayman Tisdale Award, which goes to the national freshman of the year, and the 6-10, 250-pound Duke forward is locked in a battle with Auburn forward Jabari Smith and Gonzaga forward Chet Holmgren for that prestigious trophy.
Yes, Banchero and those others also will be top-five NBA picks this summer, but that forward-looking perspective should have absolutely nothing to do with this sort of honor, which is not about projections but rather a single-season, rearview-mirror body of work assessment. Period.
By that standard, too, Banchero truly stands out in all the right ways. A six-time ACC freshman of the week, he ranks among the league leaders in scoring (16.9 ppg, sixth) and rebounding (7.8 rpg, fourth), and his eight double-doubles are fourth-most in the league. Nationally, among true freshmen, he is third in scoring, third in rebounding and fourth in field goal percentage.
The five-man ACC all-freshman team also is stunningly simple this time: Banchero, NC State guard Terquavion Smith (16 ppg), Notre Dame guard Blake Wesley (15 ppg, great defense), Duke guard AJ Griffin (10 ppg, 49% 3-point shooting, huge/impactful after injury-slowed start) and Duke guard Trevor Keels (12 ppg, 4 rpg, 3 apg). There were other talented, productive freshmen in the ACC this season, but none of the others came close to this group.
Other viable candidates: none.
Most Improved Award
Dereon Seabron, So., NC State
There are at least a half-dozen ACC players who made gargantuan leaps from last season to the 2021-22 campaign, but Seabron is the only one of those who’s an absolute lock for All-ACC, as one of eight or nine legitimate candidates for the five-man first-team all-conference squad.
A scintillating scorer whose signature move is a slashing drive to the hoop, Seabron averaged just 5.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game as a redshirt freshman reserve in 2020-21. Those numbers this season are 17.3 and 8.2, which rank fifth and second in the ACC, respectively. He’s also one of the league’s only guards shooting better than 50 percent from the field.
Although being on a last-place team with only a couple of ACC-caliber teammates makes this achievement less complicated, Seabron also is one of just a handful of players in Division I men’s basketball (358 teams) who leads his team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals.
Other viable candidates: Clemson forward PJ Hall, Pitt forward John Hugley, Syracuse center Jesse Edwards.
Sixth Man Award
Matthew Cleveland, Fr., Florida State
For months, there were even better candidates for this honor, including UNC forward Brady Manek, Duke guard AJ Griffin, Notre Dame guard Cormac Ryan and Virginia center Kadin Shedrick. Over time, though, those players performed so well that they received more starting assignments, and once you have more starts than off-the-bench appearances, you’re no longer eligible for this award, given its name and nature.
Cleveland, a true freshman with NBA potential, was the only double-figure scorer among ACC reserves this season, with 11 points per game, and his five rebounds also ranked among the best in the off-the-bench business. His game-winning 3-pointer, as the Seminoles shocked Virginia in Charlottesville, was one of the most exciting plays of the conference schedule.
Other viable candidates: Virginia Tech guard Darius Maddox, Wake Forest forward Khadim Sy, Louisville guard El Ellis, Boston College forward Quinten Post, Clemson guard Chase Hunter.
Next time: the rest of my All-ACC ballot (due Sunday!)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
The founding editor and long-time owner of the ACC Sports Journal and ACCSports.com, he also has contributed to the Durham Herald-Sun, ESPN Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Raycom Sports, SiriusXM and most recently The Athletic. From 1999-2020, he also hosted the David Glenn Show, which became the largest sports radio program in the history of the Carolinas, syndicated in more than 300 North Carolina cities and towns, plus parts of South Carolina and Virginia.
