Last week we opened the question of who is worthy of winning Player of the Year in the Big East, and nothing has happened to clarify the race.
Dwight Hardy led St. John’s to two wins, and scored a career-high 34 points in a win at Villanova. UConn split as Kemba Walker scored 16 in a win at Cincinnati. And Ben Hansbrough led the Irish to two wins, and scored a career-high 32 in a win over Providence.
The Big East has had co-Players of the Year on several occasions and, although we’ll be accused of taking the easy way out, we don’t have any problem with one more player being rewarded in the Year of Parity.
The tougher call will be for Coach of the Year, because politics will come into play. Never has there been Co-Coach of the Year winners. In alphabetical order (sort of), we make the case for this year’s candidates.
Mike Brey. Notre Dame looks like a bunch of guys you’d see at the local Y, and the Irish were picked seventh in the preseason poll. They’re alone in second.
Jim Calhoun. UConn, picked to finish 10th, is tied for seventh. The program has been hounded by NCAA investigators, yet this team has competed for the most part.
Mick Cronin. Cincinnati was picked to finish 12th. The Bearcats are tied for seventh and have won 22 games despite not getting anything from star big man Yancy Gates, who has fallen in love with the training table and out of love with team play.
Jamie Dixon. He’s gotten Pittsburgh to deliver on its preseason pick as the team to beat, not an easy task, especially after losing Ashton Gibbs for a stretch.
Rick Pitino. After Louisville lost its best player, Jared Swopshire, for the season to injury, Pitino was forced to start two juniors, two sophomores and a senior. He has the Cardinals tied for third, and despite the white suit he wore in yesterday’s overtime triumph over Pitt, Pitino remains in the conversation.
“The ones that would jump out, and some of this is in the last week and a half, someone like Mick Cronin jumps into the discussion, and Mike Brey,” said St. John’s coach Steve Lavin. “They [the Bearcats] have had their struggles and then seen to have come out of it and had two really impressive wins over Louisville and Georgetown. That’s tough to do if your team is starting to go south.”
As for Notre Dame?
“Mike Brey, over the arc of the season, has been the most consistent and is the biggest surprise,” said Lavin. “You can build a case for UConn, based on where they were projected at the start of the season. So Calhoun, Mick Cronin and Mike Brey are probably the three that are in a dogfight.”
Why not Lavin?
“What hasn’t he done, that’s the question?” said St. John’s forward D.J. Kennedy. “He came into a program and really turned it around. He came in here, new coach, first year, and got us into the top four of the Big East. No one predicted that.”
Well, yes and no. The Red Storm (19-9 overall, 11-5 in the Big East) was picked to finish sixth. Pitino, in what seemed like the act of wise-cracking New Yorker, actually voted the Johnnies No. 1.
Pitino, who knows success in this league is always grounded in experience and toughness, loved that the Johnnies have more seniors than an AARP convention.
St. John’s was expected to be better than at any time in the last six years, but no one could have forecasted this kind of success: routs of Connecticut and Duke; wins at West Virginia and Marquette; gritty triumphs over Pitt and Villanova
Lavin has gotten the Johnnies to embrace challenges as opposed to fearing them. He has moved each player into a position to thrive. Is he the Big East Coach of the Year?
Perhaps, but it’s doubtful he’ll get it. Lavin still must earn his Big East stripes. He did not cut his teeth in the Northeast, which remains the heart of the league.
Do the other coaches — this is a coaches’ vote — see Lavin as one of them or as a West Coast interloper? Right now it’s certainly more the latter than the former.
Chances are Brey is going to win it and he is worthy. But Lavin deserves to be second. It will be interesting to see if his new East Coast colleagues give him that recognition.