Carolina schools, no surprise, dominate ACC Basketball year-end voting

Illustrating how worthless the ACC Basketball awards are this year, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski finished second in the Coach of the Year voting.

Duke was the preseason favorite to win the ACC, no surprise, ended up winning it, and if anything, underachieved its way to a 26-5 finish in the regular season.

Wake Forest, which finished fifth in the conference standings, took two of the big honors, Alondes Williams as Player of the Year, and Steve Forbes as Coach of the Year.

The press release from the ACC touted Williams by noting that he could end up being the first player in conference history to lead the league in scoring and assists.

Williams already leads in the ACC, by a wide margin, in turnovers, but that wasn’t mentioned.

North Carolina forward Armando Bacot was second in the POY voting, but oddly, led all players in points for All-ACC Team voting.

Voting was done by the league’s 15 head coaches and a 63-member media panel.

I got a vote in the football preseason awards last summer, but didn’t get to vote in the football postseason or basketball postseason awards.

Those memberships in the FWAA and USBWA are really paying off.

(I will not be renewing those next year.)

Forbes was one of three guys who had good claim to Coach of the Year. Wake was 6-16 last year, his first year at the school after the underwhelming run of Danny Manning, which followed the even less whelming runs of Jeff Bzdelik and Dino Gaudio.

Coach K, with his latest run of underachieving one-and-dones, finished second in the voting. Mike Brey and Jim Larranaga, the other two guys with legit claims at Coach of the Year, didn’t score as many votes combined as Krzyzewski.

Sycophants.

Duke center Mark Williams was voted Defensive Player of the Year, which is fine, because it should have been a tight two-man race between Williams and Virginia guard Reece Beekman, only that it wasn’t a tight race, with Williams getting 59 percent of the votes.

Story by Chris Graham

2021-22 ACC Award Winners

Player of Year: Alondes Williams, Wake Forest

Rookie of Year: Paolo Banchero, Duke

Coach of Year: Steve Forbes, Wake Forest

Defensive Player of Year: Mark Williams, Duke

Most Improved Player: Dereon Seabron, NC State

Sixth Man of Year: Matthew Cleveland, Florida State

2021-22 All-ACC Team

First Team

• Armando Bacot, North Carolina, 380
• Alondes Williams, Wake Forest, 373
• Paolo Banchero, Duke, 372
• Kameron McGusty, Miami, 315
• Buddy Boeheim, Syracuse, 241

Second Team

• Keve Aluma, Virginia Tech, 192
• Dereon Seabron, NC State, 166
• Wendell Moore Jr., Duke, 161
• Blake Wesley, Notre Dame, 148
• Jake LaRavia, Wake Forest, 147

Third Team

• Dane Goodwin, Notre Dame, 131
• Mark Williams, Duke, 119
• Isaiah Wong, Miami, 119
• Jayden Gardner, Virginia, 106
• Michael Devoe, Georgia Tech, 105

Honorable Mention

• Caleb Love, North Carolina, 84
• PJ Hall, Clemson, 72
• John Hugley, Pitt, 54
• Charlie Moore, Miami, 42
• Brady Manek, North Carolina, 38
• Kihei Clark, Virginia, 22
• AJ Griffin, Duke, 22
• Paul Atkinson Jr., Notre Dame, 20
• Terquavion Smith, NC State, 15
• Reece Beekman, Virginia, 15

Note: All-ACC Team points are determined on a 5-3-1 system (five points for first team, three points for second team, one point for third team).

ACC Player of the Year

1. Alondes Williams, Wake Forest, 41 votes
2. Armando Bacot, North Carolina, 31
3. Paolo Banchero, Duke, 6

ACC Freshman of the Year

1. Paolo Banchero, Duke, 72 votes
2. Blake Wesley, Notre Dame, 4
3. Terquavion Smith, NC State, 1
4. Trevor Keels, Duke, 1

ACC Defensive Player of the Year

1. Mark Williams, Duke, 46 votes
2. Reece Beekman, Virginia, 20
3. Leaky Black, North Carolina, 7
4. Wendell Moore Jr., Duke, 3
5. Charlie Moore, Miami, 2

ACC Most Improved Player

1. Dereon Seabron, NC State, 33 votes
2. PJ Hall, Clemson, 28
3. Mark Williams, Duke, 4
4. John Hugley, Pitt, 4
5. Dane Goodwin, Notre Dame, 3
6. Jesse Edwards, Syracuse, 2
7. Wendell Moore Jr., Duke, 2
8. James Karnik, Boston College, 1
9. RJ Davis, North Carolina, 1

ACC Sixth Man of the Year

1. Matthew Cleveland, Florida State, 52 votes
2. El Ellis, Louisville, 6
3. Anthony Walker, Miami, 6
4. Khadim Sy, Wake Forest, 6
5. Kadin Shedrick, Virginia, 5
6. Quinten Post, Boston College, 2
7. Cam Hayes, NC State, 1

ACC Coach of the Year

1. Steve Forbes, Wake Forest, 40 votes
2. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke, 19
3. Mike Brey, Notre Dame, 13
4. Jim Larrañaga, Miami, 3
5. Mike Young, Virginia Tech, 1
6. Hubert Davis, North Carolina, 1
7. Tony Bennett, Virginia, 1

All-ACC Defensive Team

• Mark Williams, Duke, 77 votes
• Reece Beekman, Virginia, 69
• Leaky Black, North Carolina, 55
• Charlie Moore, Miami, 45
• Wendell Moore Jr., Duke, 33

All-Rookie Team

• Paolo Banchero, Duke, 77 votes
• Terquavion Smith, NC State, 73
• Blake Wesley, Notre Dame, 72
• AJ Griffin, Duke, 66
• Trevor Keels, Duke, 50