You just stop caring whether it is funny or not at that point

I’m onto you!

And I’m sure his non-inclusion in this post was nothing more than a Freudian oversight by DF. :-)

I did vote Pendergraph on my second team ahead of Baynes — I felt like he’s the more dynamic offensive player (less easily removed by defenses) and a good defensive player.

But I did include Baynes on the all defensive team because most people tend to judge perimeter defenders on their ability to man up and interior defenders on their ability to block shots. There is so much more to it than that. Baynes is as good of a big man as there is in the conference at hedging on screens, he’s the second best defensive rebounder in the conference, and he’s in the top five in shot blocking percentage. He wasn’t just a good defender, he was a defensive force.

As for Aboya, I could make a good argument he doesn’t even really belong on the third team. While an efficient scorer, he only took 17 percent of his team’s shots when he was on the floor (20 percent is considered the benchmark for significant contribution) and his defensive rebounding percentage is only about 16 percent — that’s absurdly low for a guy who is really his team’s only legitimate big man. I could make a very good case that Jamal Boykin should have gotten that spot. But Aboya got my nod because of team success.

My thinking was the same on Randle vs. Dentmon.

As for first teams matching up, how about this one from the Big East?
G – AJ Price (or Jonny Flynn — your choice)
G – Terrence Williams
F – Luke Harangody
F – DeJuan Blair
C – Hasheem Thabeet

I think I’d take the Big East.

Here’s why. Yes Christopher plays more minutes, but Shipp was by far the more efficient scorer (126.8 to 108.2) in roughly the same percentage of shots (24.4 for Shipp, 25.5 for Christopher), thanks largely to his superior ability as a shooter (59 eFG% to 51). They’re basically a wash as rebounders. So I guess it came down to who I thought was the better player, and in my mind that was Shipp.

We’ll see if we can pull something like that together after the season

I’ll just start by saying he is, without question, the best player in the league. In terms of the eyeball test, he’s big, he’s physical, he can drive as easily as shoot, he can pass, he can defend … he’s just simply one of the most complete players in the country and a surefire top 5 pick in the NBA draft.

But if you’re looking for less subjective measures, here are the relevant statistics in conference games, with Harden’s conference rank in parentheses:

Minute Percentage: 91.8 (5th)
Offensive Rating: 105.21 (37th)
Use percentage (possessions that end with him): 32.9 (1st – by a mile)
Shot percentage (percentage of his team’s shots when he’s on the floor): 30.41 (2nd)
Effective FG percentage: 56.7 (13th, but sixth among guards and second among guys who use more than 24 percent of their team’s possessions)
Free throw rate: 59.24 (1st)
Defensive rebounding percentage: 13.8 (5th among guards, but the only one of those five to play more than 80 percent of his team’s minutes)
Assist percentage: 29.38 (2nd to Taylor)
Steal percentage: 3.14 (5th, just in front of Collison)
Turnover percentage: 19.28 (29th, but 4th among guards who use at least 24 percent of possessions)

So, to make sense of it all, here’s what it means:

The guy is a straight-up go-to guy. The ball is in his hands more than any other player in the conference, and he’s still able to do more damage than most. Yes, his offensive rating is a bit low (it dropped as he wore down this year), but that’s normal when a guy uses such an absurd number of possessions. (In raw statistics he “used” 534 possessions in Pac-10 play; Jordan Hill was second with 480.)

There just is not a single hole in his game. He can drive and either finish or draw fouls, and he can shoot from outside. When teams try to take him away from ASU, he can find open teammates, and he doesn’t turn the ball over much. He is an excellent on-ball defender who steals the ball and ends possessions with rebounds.

I know he wore down as the season went on, but that was because Herb Sendek is an idiot. He continues to play Harden ridiculous amounts of minutes and thereby assassinate his team’s chances to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. But don’t let his slight tail-off in performance diminish the season that he had. That guy makes that team, and you’ll see just how much next year when he’s collecting his millions in the NBA.

We didn’t enjoy giving the Thomas the award either.

Coach of the Year and Most Improved are directly tied to Isaiah Thomas in my opinion. Last year all I heard was “Romar can’t coach X’s and O’s” but this year he’s suddenly amazing at it? Romar coaches good defense, and last year I thought he actually did a great job getting the team to start hustling on D, and UW noticeably improved over the year. The improvement this year could very well be explained just by noting that IT got better, which is maybe Romar’s credit or maybe just IT adjusting to the college level. Maybe I’m wrong here but I thought the thinking in Montlake is that the success of the Roy and Robinson era was mostly due to the players and their leadership – you could certainly say the same this year with IT and Brockman.

Robinson added ZERO players (at least any who scored more than 2 points in any game) and bumped the win total up by 7, equalling Romar’s achievement. I can understand giving the award to Romar, and he’s definitely a classy guy, but I don’t know how his coaching this year was really any better than Robinson’s.

Dentmon’s case is even more reliant on IT. Suddenly he doesn’t have to handle the ball anymore and can come off screens all day long. According to StatSheet.com, he actually got worse at rebounding, stealing, assisting (you’d expect that though), fouling, getting free throws, and assist to turnover ratio. All of his improvement has come from shooting (and scoring).