While half-watching the Georgetown/West Virginia game (when I was supposed to be studying), I found myself severely perturbed listening to Jay Bilas discuss what the "Coach of the Year" Award is to him. He posed the question to his booth-mate, Sean McDonough, first. McDonough gave an answer very much in line with how APT might respond (paraphrasing) "It usually goes to the coach whose players have over-achieved the most...or to a coach whose team has completely dominated...[in reference to Syracuse]...a team who was picked to finish 6th in the conference, being number one in the country ought to get you some Coach of the Year votes." (as I said, a very solid answer)
Bilas responded like so (again paraphrasing), "I agree with you that most of the time that it ends up going to the coach whose team has over-achieved, but shouldn't the Coach of the Year just go to the team with the most wins?"
At first, I heard this comment and was simply irate at the stupidity bludgeoning my eardrums. I admit to not being a fan of Jay Bilas. He is one of the many ESPN college analysts who operate in a front-running NCAA of only about 20 teams or so, that only mention an up-and-comer once it becomes the thing to do. He does have a wealth of information on the facets of a basketball game, and I can't take that away from him. His commentary is useful in these cases. But, like so many others with that same type of knowledge (Matt Millen, Lou Holtz, Lee Corso, Michael Irvin), asking him to comment on league-centered ideas (awards, rankings, indv games, general management, etc) is polluting the ears of an unbiased observer. The fact that he is carried on the same level as Andy Katz or Digger Phelps (when not talking about ND) is a disservice to the sports world. So like I said, I admit to not being a fan of Jay Bilas, but this was glaring enough an occasion for me to feel like I'm fair in speaking out.
That being said, to say there is 0% merit to what Jay had to say would be an over-exaggeration. I plan to defend my opinions objectivity by confessing to that. To have a Coach who led the nations in wins for a season not be considered for Coach of the Year would be blasphemous to the sport. Look at what John Calipari has done, for instance. He has a wealth of talent, but there is certainly something to be said about molding talent into a team, about taking young, talented, arrogant freshman-stars (diaper dandies?) and gelling them together with established, entitled juniors and seniors. That is an amazing skill. One that, perhaps, Joe Torre was never given ENOUGH credit for in the MLB.
In fact, later on in the conversation, Bill Raftery made a great point that (paraphrasing) "someone has to acquire the talent. What's to stop other teams from getting that talent? Recruiting is a big part of coaching." This is another great justification for the idea that Bilas put forth.
IF ONLY Jay had a mind open enough to even allow him to legitimately argue his own points. Jay's main defense was as follows: (once again paraphrasing) "They don't give the player of the year award to the player that is most improved." This is the defense he came up with. In case Jay ever reads this blog, I should do him the favor of explaining the difference between these two awards.
To be a PLAYER OF THE YEAR, you must individually succeed in performing basketball tasks in a way that is superior to the rest of the players. So a player must achieve the highest aggregate success among the noted statistical categories and other measurable quantities, subject to a weighting of these categories according to their direct positive effect on a basketball game. He must obtain these merits without being a deficit to his team as a whole. He should also be a legitimate citizen of the league (some give more points to players (like Tim Tebow) for being prophets, I don't).
To be a COACH OF THE YEAR, you must first accurately evaluate potential recruits that best fit the needs of a basketball program in your current standing. You must then secure the commitments of those recruits to the best of your ability, taking into consideration uncontrollable factors, such as location, school history, previously damaged university reputations, anything that transcends your position of coach. You must then take the pool of talent that you were able to bring in and mold those pieces of natural ability by teaching them the game of basketball, and creating a system of play relative to a proper assessment of their skills. Then you must train and motivate the players individually and comprehensively, so as to produce the highest quality of play possible.
So an undefeated Coach, even with superior talent, would be hard to deny the award, because he could not have done any better. However, a #1 ranked 4-loss team with a significant advantage in talent may not present as strong a coaching performance as a team who was agreed to only have the talent to produce a .500 team finishing with a 26-7 record.
I hope that Jay Bilas gets to read this article and reconsiders his positions, or more realistically, lets Sean McDonough talk some sense into him. But, from what I've seen of Bilas over the years, I seriously doubt it. Oh, and in case you were wondering, whoever the top seed is in the NCAA tournament, Jay picks them to win it all.
Thanks for listening.
Ravenously,
APT
P.S. Extra props to McDonough for the line, "So according to Jay we should just eliminate all votes for Coach of the Year and give it to the team with the best record." (Great argumentative stab, though he said it in a laughing way so as to maintain his front as a colleague. Tremendously well-executed.
P.P.S. A shout out to the blog Awful Announcing for anyone who enjoys this type of stuff. The blog also provided me the the names of the other two booth-members which I couldn't recall under pressure.
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