Cliff Barnes’ All-ACC basketball ballot

Cliff Barnes.
Cliff Barnes.

Picking the first team All-ACC was actually easier than I thought it would be this year. But picking the other 26 spots on the ballot – from the all defensive team to the most improved player – proved difficult. There is plenty of room for disagreement. I even question a couple of my picks but I think all I chose were deserving – unfortunately so were other players.

Here is the ballot I submitted Sunday.

First Team All-ACC
TJ Warren, NC State
Marcus Paige, UNC
Jabari Parker, Duke
CJ Fair, Syracuse
KJ McDaniels, Clemson

(Lamar Patterson was the only other player I really considered for the first team.)

Marcus Paige.
Marcus Paige.

Second Team All-ACC
Lamar Patterson, Pittsburgh
James Michael McAdoo, UNC
Tyler Ennis, Syracuse
Malcolm Brogdon, Virginia
Rodney Hood, Duke

(Some may put Ennis on the first team because he has such national stature but he wasn’t better than teammate Fair and he made some bad rookie turnovers in key spots. I error on the side of experience and those who have paid dues.)

Third Team All-ACC
Olivier Hanlan, Boston College
Daniel Miller, Georgia Tech
Eric Atkins, Notre Dame
Pat Connaughton, Notre Dame
Garrick Sherman, Notre Dame

(I considered Hanlan, the ACCs third leading scorer, and Miller, an all-around solid player, for second team. A lot of voters will overlook Notre Dame entirely but Atkins, Connaughton and Sherman are the league’s 14th, 15th and 17th top scorers. In ACC games, Connaughton, at just 6-5, is second only to Parker in defensive rebounds and he is eighth in three-point baskets. Meanwhile, Sherman is second only to Warren in field goal percentage and fifth in rebounding. Atkins is second only to Ennis in assists. I suspect that Atkins might be the only Irish honored but they are all deserving.)

All Defensive Team
Daniel Miller, Georgia Tech
KJ McDaniels, Clemson
Tyler Ennis, Syracuse
Jabari Parker, Duke
TJ Warren, NC State

(Some will question my having Parker and Warren on the team rather than maybe Akil Mitchell of Virginia or JP Tokoto of UNC. But Parker is tops in the league in rebounding and seventh in blocked shots while Warren is fourth in the league in steals – first in ACC games – and 10th in rebounding.)

Jabari Parker.
Jabari Parker.
All Rookie (Freshman) Team
Jabari Parker, Duke
Tyler Ennis, Syracuse
Devin Wilson, Virginia Tech
Kennedy Meeks, UNC
Anthony Barber, NC State

(I thought about putting London Perrantes of Virginia on the team. He is deserving as a ball handler for the No. 1 team in the conference but I ended up going with the guys that score more. On a different day, I easily could have included Perrantes and suspect he will make the team.)

Rookie of the Year
Jabari Parker, Duke

Daniel Miller.
Daniel Miller.

Defensive Player of the Year
Daniel Miller, Georgia Tech

(Miller will probably be overlooked by a lot of voters but he is second in the league in blocked shots – first in ACC games- and third in the league in rebounds. Teams game plan specifically against him due to his defensive presence inside. He even makes the steals list at No. 20. McDaniels of Clemson was my second choice.)

Ian Miller.
Ian Miller.
Sixth Man of the Year
Ian Miller, Florida State

(Not sure really why he only started a handful of games as he certainly put in enough minutes to be a starter. Then again, a couple of years John Havlicek came off the bench for the Celtics yet still made the all-star team. Miller is the league’s 16th top scorer, the best three-point field goal shooter in league games and the third best free throw shooter. I considered UNC’s Brice Johnson and Virginia’s Justin Anderson but thought Miller was more consistent.)

Rion Brown.
Rion Brown.
Most Improved Player
Rion Brown, Miami

(I thought about Marcus Paige for this award and I imagine he will get a lot of support for it. But I think his improvement was a natural progression for a starter. When I think of most improved, I think of a player that doesn’t play a lot one year or doesn’t play well and then looks really good the next year. Brown was basically the seventh best player on the Canes last year and this year was the best player and captain. Now, that’s improvement. He scored six points a game a year ago and he scored 15 points a game this year – good enough for eighth in the league. Brown may not have been good enough to make an All-ACC team but he certainly should be considered for Most Improved.)

Tony Bennett.
Tony Bennett.
Coach of the Year
Tony Bennett, Virginia

(This will come down to Bennett or UNC’s Roy Williams. I see this award as an expectation award. Virginia far exceeded expectations and Bennett put together a true team with a lot of solid moving parts. He did it with Joe Harris, a preseason All-ACC pick, having a so-so year for him. Williams, in changing the Heels’ fortune during the year, may very well have done one of his best coaching jobs but Carolina ended up about where people thought they would.)

TJ Warren.
TJ Warren.
Player of the Year
TJ Warren, NC State

(On probably every ballot, this comes down to Warren, Jabari Parker and Marcus Paige. I simply think Warren was the most consistently excellent player in the league. Duke and Carolina certainly did better than NC State and that should weigh into the decision. But Erick Green of a below-average Virginia Tech team won the award last year and Warren is better than Green. All three can take over games and are complete players but Warren, a sophomore, was the league’s top scorer and had a higher field goal percentage than either Parker or Paige. If the award were just for second-half play, Paige would win. If the award were for NBA potential, Parker would win. But this is Warren’s time to shine.)

6 thoughts on “Cliff Barnes’ All-ACC basketball ballot”

  1. Cliff,

    Akil Mitchell is the best defender in the ACC. He regularly guards guys on the perimeter and in the post, often the best scorer on the other team, and flat out shuts them down. Judging defensive ability based on numbers is just silly, especially if you ignore what you seem to think is the most important number in basketball- scoring. If all of your other choices are based on scoring, shouldn’t at least your defensive players be chosen on how they stop others from scoring?

    They really should just have the coaches vote for some of these things.

  2. Scoring in games where guarded by Akil Mitchell for long stretches-

    TJ Warren- 1 for 9, 4 points
    Jabari Parker- 3 for 11, 8 points
    CJ Fair- 4 for 13, 13 points (pretty sure exactly 2, from the line, came after Mitchell switched to him)
    Patterson- 3 for 14, 10 points
    McAdo- 5 for 11, 11 points

    Mitchell didn’t guard these guys the whole game, Virginia switches a lot, but he played the main role in these sub par performances.

    1. You make solid arguments Chris and I mentioned in the article that Akil Mitchell would be a good choice. On a different day I may have chosen him. On this day I put a lot of stock in rebounds, steals and blocked shots. But Mitchell is deserving and will probably be chosen by journalists who saw him more than I.

  3. Choosing 0 players from the ACC’s best defense (by a HUGE margin) is a joke, especially when Jabari Parker, a poor defender on a mediocre defense is on the team.

    Leaving off the starting PG of the ACC’s best team, who is VITAL to the flow of the offense, has an ORtg of 120, and who has posted unimaginable AST:TO ratios is the silliest thing I could imagine, especially compared to the competition.

    3 ND players on third-team? The other 2 guys on the court must REALLY suck then.

  4. I wanted to thank Brian Schwartz for his personal email. He pointed out a couple of egregious typos in the original version of this article. Thanks. I did, however, intend to use the phrase “error” on the side of experience.

    Like Chris, Brian argued for inclusion of more Virginia players and complained about all three Notre Dame players I chose for the third team – Eric Atkins, Pat Connaughton, Garrick Sherman.

    And I don’t necessarily disagree with his assessment although I think the three are worthy (in fact, Atkins nearly made the official All-ACC third team).

    I mentioned several UVA guys in the article. But had I thought those guys were great individual players rather than solid contributors to a team, I would have chosen Roy Williams as Coach of the Year. I think Tony Bennett did a superior job with less talent. In other words, had I put Brogdon on the first team, Harris on the third team and Williams as defensive player of the year and a couple of guys on the all rookie team from UVA, I would have chosen Williams instead of Bennett.

    Thanks again. Maybe we’ll agree on something else another time.

  5. By the way, as for my Notre Dame picks on the third team, six of us picked Garrick Sherman as a member of the third team while five of us picked Pat Connaughton for the third team. Eric Atkins got 23 third-team votes, two second-team votes and one first-team vote. I still feel any or all of them were deserving of at least third-team consideration.

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