Jon Scheyer, Duke's point guard and Greivis Vasquez's main competitor for ACC POY, comes to town Wednesday night.
By all indications, it’s down to Greivis Vasquez and Jon Scheyer for ACC Player of the Year honors.
If you haven’t heard, those two guys’ teams face each other Wednesday night with a piece of the regular season title on the line.
Will the ACC POY be determined in this game too?
It’s hard to tell what the voters will do, and many Terp fans will cry Carolina bias if Scheyer ends up winning.
But Vasquez’s exploits are well known throughout the conference, enough to overcome those fears.
That is to say, you can’t ignore a 41-point performance in a 2 OT road win (even if it was on 13-for-33 shooting) or a game like Vasquez had against Virginia on Feb. 15 (30 points on 12-for-19 shooting, 8 rebounds and 5 assists).
Geography shouldn’t be a factor in the voting. Yeah Vasquez was second to Duke’s Kyle Singler for ACC preseason POY, but he got the most first-team votes. Vasquez is too well-established as a league star.
Monday he won his fourth ACC Player of the Week award this season. According to Patrick Stevens, 10 out of 12 previous “four-timers” won that season’s ACC POY award.
Wednesday night’s head-to-head matchup will have more influence than anything, even if it likely just means the difference between second place and a share of first place for the Terps.
Vasquez’s numbers are slightly better (with the exception of three-point shooting and turnovers). Scheyer’s team is better (based on a better nonconference resume and the Blue Devils’ February beatdown of the Terps at Cameron Indoor).
If Vasquez and the Terps win Wednesday, it probably means Vasquez had a good game, which would point to him winning the award.
If Duke wins, Vasquez will still get his share of votes. But will he get enough votes to win against the guy who has been the best player on the best team throughout the course of the season?
Aaron Kraut is The Diamondback’s sports editor. He can be reached at akrautdbk@gmail.com.