By Dave Hickman, Special to CNNSI.com
The Big East has never strayed from its Top 10 list of scorers to find a
player of the year. For that matter, seldom have the league's coaches
considered a player who was not among the conference's top two or three
scorers.
This just might be the year things change. In fact, this should be the year.
If Pittsburgh point guard Brandin Knight isn't the player of the year, he is
certainly the league's most valuable player. A team that was picked by the
conference coaches to finish near the bottom of the Big East standings is,
instead, near the top of the national rankings. And the Panthers would be
nowhere close to that without their 6-foot junior point guard.
"Brandin Knight is the most valuable player in this league, not just
scoring-wise, but being able to get the ball to his teammates and break down
defenses," West Virginia interim coach Drew Catlett said. And that was before
Knight sprang for 29 points and six assists in an 85-75 win over the
Mountaineers.
Knight won't finish among the league's top scorers this season. His 15.6
average isn't even in the Top 10. He won't lead the Big East in assists,
either, instead giving that up to Notre Dame freshman Chris Thomas. Thomas
and even Syracuse's James Thues have better assist-to-turnover ratios.
But no one has done more for his team than Knight, who is the catalyst in
Pitt's surge to a 24-4 record and a No. 10 national ranking.
"He has the basketball IQ of Einstein," said Pitt coach Ben Howland.
If Knight isn't given the Big East's player of the year award, it will be
because the league's coaches weren't paying attention.
Connecticut's Caron Butler is probably the best all-around player in the
league and the one with the best NBA upside, but without him the Huskies
would still be near the top of the conference.
Boston College guard Troy Bell, the co-player of the year (with Notre Dame's
Troy Murphy ) last season and this season's preseason player of the year, has
been up and down, as has Syracuse's Preston Shumpert.
Knight has been only up, save for his atrocious and inexplicable free throw
shooting.
The only player-of-the-year candidates even on the radar screen are Knight,
Butler and Bell -- Knight because he is the MVP, Butler because he is the
best all-around player and Bell because he led the league in scoring. Those
three seem certain to make the five-member all-Big East team.
The other two spots are intriguing. Shumpert is third in the league in
scoring but the Orangemen have faded badly. Providence's John Linehan,
Georgetown's Kevin Braswell and Miami's Darius Rice were on the preseason
all-league team (along with Shumpert, Bell and Butler), but Linehan and
Braswell have not jumped up to stake claims to postseason honors while their
teams have struggled, and Rice has blended in with an overachieving Miami
team.
Georgetown's Mike Sweetney would be a logical choice because no one can guard
the 6-8, 260-pounder on the block. Notre Dame's Ryan Humphrey is a
double-double machine, too.
The wild card in the mix is St. John's point guard Marcus Hatten. Hatten
won't pry the Big East scoring title away from Bell (Bell leads 22.2 to 20.1
heading into the final weekend), but in league games only, the junior college
transfer guard leads Bell 22.9 to 20.9.
With all that in mind, our All-Big East team is made up of Knight, Butler,
Bell, Sweetney and Hatten. The coaches probably won't agree.
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As long as we're picking a player of the year and an all-conference team, we
might as well do the coaches a favor and give them their all-rookie team, too.
For starters, rookies Hatten and Jerome Coleman aren't eligible because of
their junior college backgrounds. But that doesn't mean we don't have one
heck of a group here:
Notre Dame point guard Chris Thomas will lead the league in assists and
assist-to-turnover ratio, along with his 16.1 scoring average.
UConn center Emeka Okafor will finish the season among the nation's leaders
in blocked shots.
Guard Ricky Shields has combined with Coleman to add a new spark at Rutgers
and was thrice named the league's rookie of the week (Thomas has been honored
six times, Okafor four).
Guard Ben Gordon can't crack the starting lineup at Connecticut, but he
would at nearly any other school in the league.
And Providence forward Ryan Gomes has been lost in the shuffle of a
disappointing season, but he was the Friars' best player much of the season.
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HOT: Notre Dame G Chris Thomas
In his last three games, Thomas is averaging 22 points and 11.3 assists.
NOT: Syracuse
The Orangemen are just 4-7 in their last 11 games, including a 75-69 loss to
Georgetown that gave the Hoyas their first season sweep of the series since
1987-88.
HOT: Connecticut F Caron Butler
In his last three games, Butler is averaging 24 points and nine rebounds as
the Huskies ran away from the rest of the East division.
NOT: West Virginia
A loss in the finale at Pitt Saturday would be the Mountaineers' 18th in the
season's final 19 games and give West Virginia its first 20-loss season ever.
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Seton Hall still had a chance to upset Rutgers, trailing by 10 with just
under four minutes to play. And Marcus Toney-El was going to make sure Mike
Sherrod didn't have a chance to increase that margin.
In one of the nastiest-looking plays of the season, Seton Hall's Toney-El
chased down Rutgers' Sherrod, who was about to make a breakaway
layup after a steal. Toney-El reached out and all but clothes-lined Sherrod,
send both sprawling into the stands where players and fans joined in a brief
skirmish.
Toney-El was ejected from the game.
"We were told that Rutgers is not a very good free-throw shooting team, and
he's one of the guys to foul," Toney-El said a few days later. "I reached for
the ball. Because he jumped, I got his shooting arm. On TV, it looked worse
than it actually was."
Seton Hall coach Louis Orr stood by Toney-El later.
"I know Marcus wasn't trying to hurt anybody," Orr said. "I feel certain of
that."
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 Villanova F Brooks Sales
Sales had 15 points and 15 rebounds as the Wildcats upset Syracuse and all
but wrapped up an NIT berth.
Virginia Tech F Bryant Matthews
Matthews came off the bench to make six of eight shots and score 15 points as
the Hokies beat Rutgers, giving them back-to-back Big East wins for the first
time.
Pitt F Donatas Zavackas
Zavackas's 3-pointer sent the game into overtime and he finished with 15
points and 10 rebounds in a 73-66 overtime win at Seton Hall.
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Way back when, Boston College and Syracuse looked toward their game on the
last day of the regular season and figured it might be for a high seed in the
NCAA tournament. Now it's a game just to make the NCAA tournament.
The Eagles, after a 12-1 start, are a lousy 6-9 since the calendar turned.
And were it not for a sweep of Miami, B.C. would have no quality wins at all
this season.
Syracuse is much the same. Since a 16-2 start propelled the Orangemen into
the Top 10, they have gone 4-6 since mid-January. Quality wins? Since
November, only a victory at Notre Dame qualifies.
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Connecticut and Pitt have wrapped up the top seeds in each division for the
Big East tournament that begins Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. The
second seeds in each division, which also earn byes, are still up for grabs
between St. John's and Miami in the East and Syracuse and Notre Dame in the
West. No team has ever won the league tournament without a first-round bye.
... If St. John's beats Villanova and Notre Dame beats Providence, the Big
East will go into the league tournament with six 20-win teams. ... Rutgers is
15-1 at home this season, but Wednesday's 63-49 loss at Virginia Tech was the
Scarlet Knights' sixth Big East road loss by at least 13 points.
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