📡 Choosing SEC Player Of The Year Proved Daunting At ESPN - 247Sports

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Choosing SEC Player Of The Year Proved Daunting At ESPN

ESPN has surprising candidates for SEC basketball Player of the Year

247sports.com

I’ll admit I’ve never talked to Myron Medcalf, or even heard of him. But I’m guessing if ESPN didn’t renew the contract of one of the finest writers of our time, Ivan Maisel, and Myron Medcalf has a job as an ESPN staff writer that he must have impressed someone.

Don’t count me among them, other than my admiration for taking on a daunting task – predicting the top candidates for Player of the Year in every college basketball conference. Now, a few things about that:

• Was he trying to shock some people?
• Was there any reason not to give it a few more weeks and let the season – at least the conference schedules – play out?
• If you are going to take on the proverbial daunting task, don’t be so daunted.

(We know that it is a difficult task because Mr. Medcalf told us so in his opening paragraph.)

He also told us that “In most cases, good players on good teams are often the top candidates for these awards.”

I’ll admit to no interest whatsoever in Mr. Medcalf’s selections in 29 of the 30 conferences in which he tried.

I was interested in his proviso that he had narrowed his candidates to two in each league.

The big story in the Southeastern Conference, of course, is Alabama. The Crimson Tide has won all but one of its 13 league games to have a comfortable lead for the regular season championship, is ranked among the nation’s top ten teams, is considered a possibility for a 2 seed (or even a 1) in the NCAA Tournament.

Things like that are done with good players. I was anxious to see which Crimson Tide player would be the leading candidate for SEC Player of the Year. Could it possibly be the top two from Bama?

After all, the Tide has the SEC’s top three-point shooter in John Petty, Jr., and the most admired all-around player, starting with defense, in Herbert Jones.

Nope.

His front-runner is Cameron Thomas of LSU. We have no doubt that Thomas was a good candidate for a strong-ass offer from Tigers Coach Will Wade, and he was reasonably effective at times in LSU’s two blowout losses to Bama.

And Thomas’s top competition? Tre Mann of Florida. Also a nice player.

I, however, would have missed on both of those

And I’d say it doesn’t look good for what I have expected would be a runaway selection of Bama’s Nate Oats for SEC Coach of the Year -- at least not from ESPN.

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