clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Real, Non-Wonkish Honors Garnered by Lucas, Green, and Morgan

Awards:

  • Kalin Lucas is a first-teamer in both the coaches' and media's books.
  • Draymond Green is a third-teamer and the Sixth Man of the Year in both sets of voting.  (Update: Unanimous on the sixth-man pick.)
  • Raymar Morgan was given third-team status by the coaches (whom I trust less in matters of national polling but more in matters of all-conference picks).  Honorable mention in the media voting.
  • Isaiah Dahlman is the Michigan State sportsmanship award winner.

Kudos.

Evan Turner is Player of the Year.  Obviously.  McCamey/Lucas/Turner/Hummel/Moore is the consensus first team.  Matt Painter and Thad Matta split the Coach-of-the-Year honors; no obvious winner there (except that you could give it to Bo Ryan every year if you wanted to).  Tom Izzo probably equally deserving.  Crawford and Richardson split Freshman-of-the-Year honors.

I don't have any major beefs with any of the selections.  Lucas obviously gets a boost relative to his numbers based on reputation, along with some big late-game shots this season.  John Shurna suffered a little bit due to Northwestern's lower profile (and win total).

One gripe: What does Damian Johnson have to do to get some love?  He was excluded from coaches' all-defensive team (Nash/Lauderdale/J. Johnson/Kramer/Hughes), despite ranking in the top 3 in the league in both steals and blocks per game.

Linking Laconically is appending itself to this post

Bonus! Quote from the second link above:

Izzo made it clear he really wants to win the Big Ten Tournament this year. Really. Really really. Offense is going to be a focal point this week, striking a balance. MSU has been going inside with great success lately, but Chris Allen has 10 shots in three games. The Spartans will need both working in the postseason.

I like the sound of that.  With the three-way tie for the regular season crown, the BTT serves as sort of a tie-breaker for king-of-the-hill bragging rights (although Wisconsin may have something to say about that).  It hasn't felt like the conference tournament has been a high priority for MSU in the last several years, serving as more of a warm-up for the Big Dance.  As a fan with a seat reserved at Conseco Fieldhouse this weekend, I say let's go all-in this time around.