Who should be the MAC Player of the Year?

It’s been pretty dark around here as of late, but I wanted to chime in on the Mid American Conference Player of the Year Award which was handed out on Monday.  Kent State‘s junior Justin Greene took home the honors and it left me a bit puzzled. The MAC seems to vote the leagues best player from the team that won the better division (read: the East) and ditto for the Coach of the Year. I wasn’t alone in my bewilderment in that, as Matt Sussman pondered the same question over at The Hustle Belt.

So how will I attack this debate? I’m glad you asked.

I’m going to use the Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game (PORPAG) that I used at the mid point of the season. At that time, Northern Illinois‘ standout Xavier Silas led the way at 4.30 PORPAG. If you would like some back round on the statistic, please see the link above. However, the major caveats are that this metric speaks nothing of defense and is not adjusted for playing time lost to injuries — so Silas slips a bit with his injury at the end of the season. Also, basketball is a team game and it’s hard to separate out what is the function of a team and what isn’t, but you don’t need me to tell you that. This is conference-only data, as well. Onward to the data!

Your MAC Player of the Year

 

…Antonio Ballard! Why Ballard? Well, he had a crazy good Offensive Rating (ORtg) and combined it with decently high usage rate (Poss%) and playing the most minutes in MAC scheduling, at nearly 90% of his teams total minutes.

Rest of the top five in bullet-point form:

• Western Michigan has been thriving of late, winning 9 of their last 11 and it’s been on the back of some great play from Flenard Whitfield. No one’s really overlooking the other half of what Matt Sussman’s dubbed “Flenmetrius” — Demetrius Ward. Ward’s second in the conference in PORPAG  (and the only other player over 4.00 PORPAG), on the back of some good shooting. Ward’s effective field goal percentage eFG in MAC play is sitting at almost 50% which is far greater than it’s been in his first two years. It does help that he’s knocking down 40.5% from three.
• Ohio‘s DJ Cooper comes in third on the back of a 42.4% assist rate. He’s shooting the ball decently but make no mistake, Cooper’s best asset is setting his teammates up for easy looks first, then look to fill it up second.
• There’s Xavier Silas. The NIU star went down with an injury late in the year which is the main reason he drops. His minute percentage dipped from my mid-season rankings because of that. He’s still high up on this list because of his very high usage rate — finishing off one-third of the Huskies possessions offensively when he’s in the game, which is the highest rate in the MAC. He’s a great scorer and the best player in the MAC in my opinion, when he’s on the floor, though.
• Another RedHawk in the top ten: Nick Winbush. Winbush has been a highly-efficient player the last two seasons, and his minutes increased almost 10-per-game this year. He’s shooting effectively and he takes a ton of shots — so even though he’s only 21st in the conference in eFG, his volume of shots he takes makes up for that. Oh, and he grabs one out of every five of his opponents misses when he’s on the court.
• The Bulls’ fab-frosh Javon McCrea has been phenomenal on the glass and as an offensive force. Buffalo really hit a gem in this undersized (height-wise) forward. He’s shooting 63% from the field, gets to the free throw line at a good clip and, as I mentioned, dominates the glass. McCrea’s a do-everything player for Buffalo and will terrorize the MAC for the next three seasons.
• Bobcats forward Ivo Baltic pops up in the seventh spot on this list. His minute percentage is lagging, but he does get about a quarter of Ohio’s possessions when he’s on the court. The sophomore forward has the third best True Shooting Percentage (TS%) at 61.8 and sixth best eFG at 56.6.
• Mikey Douglas has a low usage rate of just 16.1% — the lowest in the top 10 — but a large function of that is the fact that he’s a dish-man first. Douglas is eighth in the conference in assist rate, though he could benefit from a decrease in turnovers. He is 10-of-18 from three in MAC play this year and his slashing to the hoop has led to a 55.5 eFG — eighth best in conference play. He gets to the line better than almost anyone in the MAC, too, which is a good thing given his 77.4% free throw percentage.
• Yet another RedHawk! See a pattern here? Julian Mavunga is the only guy to get to the free throw stripe more than the aforementioned Douglas. That drives Mavunga’s offensive game as he bangs around grabbing defensive boards to help the RedHawks transition into offense. He’s also 9-of-27 from deep, too, as a 6-foot-8 forward. That type of versatility makes Mavunga a match-up nightmare for the rest of the MAC.
• Ahh, finally we reach a Kent State player. Just, not the one annointed by the MAC as the Player of the Year. We have Rodriguez Sherman for the Golden Flashes who would be sixth in the conference in 3-point-percentage (41.3) had he qualified. Sherman’s got the lowest min% of any player in the top ten, but when he’s playing, he’s shooting lights-out: fifth in eFG and sixth in TS%.

In addition to the MAC POTY, they handed out the Freshman of the Year award to Javon McCrea. Since McCrea is the lone freshman in the top 10 in PORPAG, this is a good call. The other two in contention via this metric would be a distant Nick Kellogg and Juwan Howard, Jr.

The coach of the year went to Geno Ford of Kent State, but I think Charlie Coles of Miami should’ve gotten it. Coles had to deal with numerous injuries and a rotation of essentially six guys for the majority of conference play and did it successfully. WMU’s Steve Hawkins came in third and I likely would’ve voted him second given how low the team was voted in the preseason.