BYU Basketball and P.O.Y. Fraud

Well, the college basketball season has ended for the Cougars of BYU. This year’s BYU team broke the school’s record for the most wins in a season (going 30-6) and were able to grab a handful of other records as well. Jimmer Fredette set a BYU record by scoring 49 points at Arizona (passing Bob Skousen’s mark of 47 set against UCLA in 1961). This feat was also a McKale Center record and tied the record for the most points in a game by a MWC player. Also in that game he hit 9 three pointers which passed Mike Rose’s mark of 8. In addition to these records, many individual awards were given to BYU players. Jimmer Fredette was awarded All-American Honorable Mention by the Associated Press and All-American 3rd Team by Sporting News. He was also named District VIII Player of the Year by the US Basketball Writers Association. In addition to their making the all MWC team (Tavernari also made this squad) Fredette and Emery were included on the All-District Team put out by the USWBA and the NABC. In addition to these accolades, BYU got the monkey off their back ending a 7 game NCAA tournament losing streak with a first round win over the University of Florida.

In all, the year has been good for BYU, beginning with the football team’s surprise upset of then #3 Oklahoma at Cowboy Stadium and ending with the first NCAA basketball win in over a decade (also the women‘s basketball team made the Elite 8 in the WNIT).

The only thing that could have made the year better would have been a MWC championship and Jimmer’s being named MWC Player of the Year.

We now enter the rant portion of this post, so prepare yourself.

During the 2009-2010 Men’s Basketball season there were 11 individual players who took the 20 MWC Player of the Week awards (3 co-players of the week). BYU and UNM each took 6 with the rest being split up among 5 other teams. Jimmer led the way winning the award 5 times, Kawhi Leonard of SDSU (Freshman) won 3 and 3 other players won twice. These other players include Roman Martinez of UNM, Tre’von Willis of UNLV, and Darington Hobson of UNM.

It seems logical that the player most deserving of the player of the year award be the player who won the most player of the week awards, right? Well, instead it went to Hobson whose two on the year was not even the most received on his own team. (Roman Martinez won two also).

Well, then it must be more about what they accomplish during the conference schedule, right? Wrong again. Hobson won the award only once during the months of conference games falling behind Fredette (2), Willis (2), and Leonard (2). In fact, two other players (Dairese Gary and AJ Hardeman) from his own team won it once over that time period.

When you compare their stats, Jimmer Fredette and Darington Hobson are almost identical in steals, blocked shots, turnovers, and assists. Jimmer scored just over 6 more points per game and Hobson rebounded about 6 more per game. Fredette also shot a higher percentage in each category (FG, FT, and 3PT).

In a form of fantasy basketball that I participate in, a statistic (TDX) is calculated to provide an idea of the “per minute” impact of an individual player. As such, I took the total stats of these two players, divided by minutes and added them up, subtracting turnovers and personal fouls from the total, and these were the results.

Fredette -- 0.880
Hobson -- 0.789

These scores mean that in 30 minutes of play Fredette would assemble some collection of stats totaling 26.4 (losing points for fouls and turnovers, but gaining them for rebounds, assists, points, steals, and blocks) while Hobson would tally 23.7 in the same amount of time.

This being said, the past cannot be undone and Darington Hobson is the MWC player of the year for 2010; the best player on the best team. However, but I feel it impossible to say that he is truly the best player in the MWC while the stats seem to imply otherwise.