The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

7.14 percent

March 7, 2016 by Mike Casazza

7.14 percent

Honestly? I don’t have a problem with that. That’s not my first team. That’s not who I think are the Big 12’s best five players. If it was up to me to rank the league’s top 15 players, which I may or may not have done yesterday afternoon, I’d have 13 of those 15.

But I’m OK with that.

Now, as for WVU?

The Mountaineers are obsessed with slights and plights — Bob Huggins is mentioning his team’s travel a lot, no? Don’t you think he wants to play in Brooklyn or Raleigh when the NCAA tournament starts — so I expect Jaysean Paige’s spot on the second team will get some mileage … but he sort of belongs on the second team. And you can look at the three teams and squint and believe Paige finished sixth in votes, and that’s fitting because he was the unanimous pick for sixth man of the year.

All of the awards are perfectly acceptable, too, and though I think Bill Self or Shaka Smart would be good picks for coach of the year, Tubby Smith makes sense. (This is where you say the team picked to finish 10th finished seventh with a .500 record and Bob Huggins coached the team that was picked sixth and finished second and nine games above .500 and I go, “I know. I know.)

I have a problem, believe it or not, with the honorable mention teams. There were 13 players from seven schools. No one from TCU, Kansas State or West Virginia (!) made that team. No one from the 10-, eighth- and second-place teams. Every Big 12 coach has touted WVU’s depth this season, and it has two of the league’s 28 best players?

That’s incorrect, and Tarik Phillip and/or Jon Holton would not be wrong to be upset. I don’t know how 13 are named honorable mention and one or both of them — or TCU’s Malique Trent, who has the misfortune of being the best player on the worst team but led the league in steals, was a player opponents sort of hated going against and didn’t make any all-conference team or the all-defense team — couldn’t make it, unless the honorable mention team has a limit of 13 players like a college team does.

Who knows? The way coaches pick is a bit of a mystery. The Associated Press will release its media team, and the criteria there is interesting. It votes for a newcomer of the year, as opposed to the newcomer and freshman of the year. The all-conference teams have to have a point guard and a post player. That’s probably going to cost Paige first team there, too.