WCC Player of the Year

by up7587 Mon Aug 01, 2022 9:11 am

Only one current WCC school has never had a WCC Player of the Year. No guessing needed, it's us. So the question is, will the Pilots ever have a player named POY?

In the last 20 years, only four teams have had the WCC Player of the Year. SCU has had two (one shared), BYU had two, SMC has had 3. GU had all the rest of them. Prior to 2000, there was some diversity in the schools with the POY. Now, not so much.

Ran across this in a Wiki article, hopefully Prof. DD will accept the shoddy research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Conference_Mens_Basketball_Player_of_the_Year

I looked at this because I noticed that although Bill Russell led the Dons to two NCAA championships, he was only CBA (WCC) POY once. In 1954-55, when the Don were 12-0 in conference, Ken Sears from SCU was named POY for a second time. SCU was 6-6 that year. Perhaps some of the racism that Russell famously used as motivation?

by Dean Murdoch Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:14 am

1954-55 stats
Sears: 22.3 PPG, 14.3 RPG, .501 FG%. SCU was 13-11 overall and 6-6 in the CBA.
Russell: 21.4 PPG, 20.5 RPG, .541 FG%. USF was 28-1 overall, 12-0 in the CBA, and won a national championship.

It's not like Sears was a plug, but yeahhhh... I might give a slight edge to Mr. Russell on this one Wink

by NoPoNeighbor Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:54 pm

Dean Murdoch wrote:1954-55 stats
Sears: 22.3 PPG, 14.3 RPG, .501 FG%. SCU was 13-11 overall and 6-6 in the CBA.
Russell: 21.4 PPG, 20.5 RPG, .541 FG%. USF was 28-1 overall, 12-0 in the CBA, and won a national championship.

It's not like Sears was a plug, but yeahhhh... I might give a slight edge to Mr. Russell on this one

Those rebounding numbers (for both players but especially Russell) are unreal! This is in the pre-shot clock era, too, which I assume (but maybe I'm wrong on this?) means there were fewer total shots, and therefore rebound opportunities, over the course of any given game. I looked up the rebounding leaders for the '54-'55 season, sure that Russell would be far and away the national leader. But no. That year, Charlie Slack of Marshall set the still-standing NCAA record for rebounds per game in a season with 25.6.

RIP Bill Russell, a legend and a force for good in the world.

by OldePilot Wed Aug 03, 2022 11:19 am

In addition to the Russell v. Sears stat line, the Dons beat the Broncos in three matchups, 54-44, 66-52 and 73-61. That head-to-head dominance along with the stat line should have sealed the deal.

WCC Player of the Year

WCC Player of the Year

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