In a shocker to no one, Aaron Donald has been named the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year. Here’s the official announcement:
Donald received 44 of 65 votes and also recieved four votes for the overall player of the year, which went to Jameis Winston.
With plenty of time before a bowl game (more on that later this week), the coaching staff is wasting no time. It’s the opportunity for a late push before the dead period and there’s a lot happening right now. I’m only going to post info that’s publicly available because it’s not cool to post info only available behind a paywall for free. Guys like Tony Greco, Chris Peak, Greg Croft, etc. work too hard for their stuff to be thrown out there. (more…)
Okay, Penn State-Pitt for the first time since 2005.
7:30 start time and airing on ESPNU.
This isn’t the injury-ravaged squad of a year ago. Nor is it the bottom feeders of the previous, what 3-4 years? No one really cares. Not in Penn State. Definitely not outside of it.
Tonight, though, they care.
This one has a chance to be a good game.
Sure they lost to Bucknell, but hey that happens to everyone at some point. They had a decent trip to Brooklyn. Beating St. John’s in OT and losing to Ole Miss by a few. Pat Chambers has done a nice job of trying to build this team. Tim Frazier has come back really well from his injury last year. D.J. Newbill has been outstanding. They have a very talented backcourt — on offense.
Their weaknesses are just as obvious. The defense is lacking. They’ll gamble on steals — as much because they struggle to guard players as by design. Not much of a frontcourt. And they lack depth. Frazier, Newbill and Ross Taylor all are averaging over 33 minutes a game. And this is just 8 games in, with a decent amount of scrub teams on the schedule. Don’t be surprised if Frazier and Newbill are out there for nearly the entire 40 minutes (barring foul trouble). Though, as you would expect, their coach downplays the minutes issue.
The ACC announced their all-ACC teams today. No shock that Aaron Donald was on the first team squad. What I found mildly surprising was that he wasn’t a unanimous pick. The only unanimous pick was BC RB Andre Williams. Even FSU QB Jameis Winston or UNC TE Eric Ebron couldn’t get all unanimous picks. Rough crowd.
Tyler Boyd was second team All-ACC. Devin Street was on the third team. Offensive guard Matt Rotheram and safeties Jason Hendricks and Ray Vinopal were all honorable mention.
Fine I’ll do this quickly. The column by Dejan Kovacevic is a classic, “I’m just asking questions,” thing. It is meant to provoke debate and little else.
“Wow, that’s a hard one. Not sure how to answer,” Jamie Dixon was telling me Sunday after practice at the Pete. “I mean, what we have going is smaller and quicker, and it does change how you play. And some guys individually have stepped up. But Steve’s a great player. I don’t know.”
Hmm. So maybe the notion isn’t all nuts.
Right. Because Coach Dixon was going to say something that would denigrate the present team by saying he wants another player. Of course not.
Would Dixon take Adams back now? He simply smiled at that. Of course he would.
But he quickly followed up, “We loved having Steve, but you move on. I like this team we have. I like it a lot.”
That’s about as far as you will get from Dixon.
Got my wish about a challenge from Duquesne yesterday. They played exceptionally well against Pitt. Better than the final score would indicate.
Pitt came out and blitzed the Stage Magicians in the first few minutes, and it looked like another blowout in the making. Instead Duquesne came back on Pitt, while Pitt found out early how bad they were going to be in their outside shooting.
Ultimately, Pitt was just better and deeper. Pitt may have had a miserable outside shooting game, while Duquesne was at one point an ungodly 7-9 on 3s. Pitt, however, is able to score from more than outside the arc. Duquesne was only 11-32 anywhere from inside the 3-point line, and their frontcourt couldn’t hit a free throw to save their life (Soko, McCoy and Lewis were a dismal 12-27 on FTs).
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