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Post by SaltNPepper on Nov 29, 2004 8:58:13 GMT -5
As a Nebraska fan trying to look objectively at how our players stacked up for the conference awards, I would have expected that three of our player (Saleaumua, Elmer & Pavan) would have received consideration for AA status. Houghtelling - Mancuso split time and each had problems at times so I wouldn't expect a conference award for them. Stalls is playing well, but not an "All-Conference" player yet. Busboom was pretty shaky early on and play much better the last third of the season. Does that earn her conference AA - nope - same thing really for McCormick. So the Huskers got all the AA's (three) they could have hoped for. No complaint here.
For FOY, I felt Pavan was the leading contender. She got it. No complaint here.
For Defensive POY, Saleaumua shares the award. No complaint here.
For POY. Week in an week out, Topic was really putting up some big numbers - maybe not in the last match with Nebraska, but that's about it. Nebraska seemed to have a different player step up each week and Pavan had a stretch of games in the middle of the conference schedule whether her numbers (while not bad) were not always impressive - and she's just a freshman where Topic is a senior. Am I surprised that Topic wins it. Not at all. No complaint here.
Newcomer of the Year. No candidate from Nebraska. No complaint here.
Coach of the Year. If part of this award has to do with how well these coaches recruited in the last year, then Cook should have won hands down. If the award is a measure of how well their respective teams did in comparison to what was expected of them, then Elliot was the best choice. No complaint here.
So, I don't get this thought that Nebraska somehow got screwed in the conference awards - they got everything they could have reasonable expected.
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Post by huskervbfan on Nov 29, 2004 9:07:17 GMT -5
What part of the word "expectations" are you failing to understand? I would think the Coach of the Year would be the BEST Coach of the Year and that was clearly John Cook. Now if you change the award name to "Didn't do as bad as someone else award so by default is considered to do better than expected" then Jerrit wins. If that is all it amounts to , then it is not much of an honor so he can have it.
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Post by bigfan on Nov 29, 2004 9:08:52 GMT -5
The Big 12 coaches should be ashamed of themselves for their conference awards voting. Texas which came in second by four votes, had the POY, newcomer of the year and the most all-conference selections. What the coaches are saying is that Texas has by far, the most talent. They than completeletly contradict themselves by voting Jerrit the Coach of the Year. I don't want to detract from Texas or Elliot who did a great job this year but, Here is a simple question coaches- If Texas has the best player in the conference and the most standouts of any teams, didn't they under achieve by losing the conference by four games? If Nebraska has less talent (that is what the coaches are saying) than how come Cook who won the conference in a landlslide, and earned the #1 seed in the country, isn't coach of the year. There is only one of two scenarios, the players at Nebraska got shafted by the conference coaches or Cook did. There is only one award in the conference that isn't voted on and that is Big 12 champions. I guess the lesson is "if you can't beat em, shaft em!" Cry, cry, cry.. The coached themselves voted on these awards. What's next maybe we should go back to pre-arrangred marriages.
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Post by bigfan on Nov 29, 2004 9:12:05 GMT -5
I would think the Coach of the Year would be the BEST Coach of the Year and that was clearly John Cook. Now if you change the award name to "Didn't do as bad as someone else award so by default is considered to do better than expected" then Jerrit wins. If that is all it amounts to , then it is not much of an honor so he can have it. Who voted on these awards? Repeat after me "The Coaches Themselves".
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Post by huskervbfan on Nov 29, 2004 9:13:42 GMT -5
Coach of the Year. If part of this award has to do with how well these coaches recruited in the last year, then Cook should have won hands down. If the award is a measure of how well their respective teams did in comparison to what was expected of them, then Elliot was the best choice. No complaint here. If that is truly all it is, then I have no complaints either. I guess I was somehow mistaken. I guess for some reason, I thought the honor was what the title was named for. You know, like supposedly you get a Emmy for the best of a class. If it is just where you stay the same when others go down, he wins as a gimmee since our coach couldn't go up any higher.
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Post by dishdaball on Nov 29, 2004 10:03:00 GMT -5
If that is truly all it is, then I have no complaints either. I guess I was somehow mistaken. I guess for some reason, I thought the honor was what the title was named for. You know, like supposedly you get a Emmy for the best of a class. If it is just where you stay the same when others go down, he wins as a gimmee since our coach couldn't go up any higher. and he never misses a chance to let others know......perhaps why people didn't vote for him..........
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2004 10:25:11 GMT -5
I have no problems with the awards. I think NU's balance this season outside of Pavan hurt their choices of a player of the year type person. I agree with whomever said the team is much more focused on the big picture than the Big 12 awards.
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Post by I Luv Danny R on Nov 29, 2004 10:36:02 GMT -5
Whats the difference between FOY and Newcomer of the year??? I seen Pavan got FOY.
I think Nebraska got robbed. Seems like it this year every team got robbed either with there all confrence teams and also there seedings.
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Post by huskervbfan on Nov 29, 2004 10:38:42 GMT -5
Whats the difference between FOY and Newcomer of the year??? I seen Pavan got FOY. I think Nebraska got robbed. Seems like it this year every team got robbed either with there all confrence teams and also there seedings. I think Newcomer allows for transfers. I don't personally feel they should give an award for transferring but that's just me.
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Post by packitwithpurple on Nov 29, 2004 10:39:02 GMT -5
Actually, I think you ALL are wrong. Players and coaches should get these awards based on the DIFFERENCE they make in their team's performance over what it would have been WITHOUT them.
A coach should be recognized for how much BETTER his team performed over the SEASON (not just part of it, or for one match) based on how it WOULD have performed without him/her being involved. Now, this "factor" may be much harder to judge than "who finished at the top," but better reflects "value." However, the other coaches CAN judge this award better than any of us because they are professionals doing the same job and are first hand witnesses to the performance (at least twice a season) to how the other coaches do their job.
In this case, I don't think that either Cook OR Elliott should be COY since they both had such talented teams that their coaching was probably a minor part of the success of each team. In fact, there SHOULD be an award for "recruiter of the year." That's what it is all about. Johnny Wooden and many other successful coaches readily admit that if you recruit the right "people" (not just the "best athletes"), having winning teams kind of takes care of itself.
It always bugged me when Pat Riley was coach of the Lakers that he would get "annointed" the COY honors in the NBA -- like he made a big difference. Look at the talent he had with Kareem, Magic, Worthy and the others. How coudl he lose when, in fact, it was Magic that made the team go? All he did was babysit the team.
Same goes with the players. Which player made the biggest difference in how their team performed? I am not familiar enough with all the Big-12 teams to make that judgement for this year, but it was pretty clear that the difference for K-State last year was Loren Goering and Laura Downey. Without those 2, -- no Big-12 championship.
Quite frankly, I am not sure that the lose of Topic or Paven would have made any difference in the standings this year. There was enough talent on each team that the absence of each of them would probably not have made much difference in how each team finished -- and I am not sure that K-State would have beat each of them without those two stars.
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Post by FreeBall on Nov 29, 2004 14:30:38 GMT -5
It always bugged me when Pat Riley was coach of the Lakers that he would get "annointed" the COY honors in the NBA -- like he made a big difference. Look at the talent he had with Kareem, Magic, Worthy and the others. How coudl he lose when, in fact, it was Magic that made the team go? All he did was babysit the team. I always had much the same thought with Phil Jackson being referred to as a "coaching genius". He always had great players and the main thing he did was stay out of the way and let them play. It would have been fun to see him coach a team like the Atlanta Hawks. I don't think they would have been any better, since they would still have worse players than most of the teams they were facing. Without Pavan, Nebraska would have basically had last year's team with another year of experience. Maybe good enough to win the conference, but definitely not good enough to do it with a 20-0 conference record. Pavan has made a huge difference this year, and in my mind she is the Big 12 POY. It would have been interesting to see how the voting turned out if Cook had nominated her for the award.
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Post by packitwithpurple on Nov 29, 2004 15:20:44 GMT -5
Without Pavan, Nebraska would have basically had last year's team with another year of experience. Maybe good enough to win the conference, but definitely not good enough to do it with a 20-0 conference record. Pavan has made a huge difference this year, and in my mind she is the Big 12 POY. It would have been interesting to see how the voting turned out if Cook had nominated her for the award. That, of course, is hard to determine since someone else would have played in her place, and the dynamic would have been different, and it is hard to know how much better the others were because everyone had to "favor" their blocking assignments for Paven. However, I DO agree that Paven is CLEARLY the POY in the Big-12. I think that she her presence in the lineup has caused every other team to have to focus so heavily on her, that it has elevated the play of everyone else on the team so that they have gone from a "good" team to a "great" team. Maybe Cook's greatest contribution this year was to keep the veteran players from becoming demoralized by the incursion of a new superstar freshman into the mix -- meaning they don't get as much playing time. For that, maybe he SHOULD get COY!! ;D They, in my mind, have gone from maybe a number 3-5 ranked team to "take all the marbles" team because of Paven and Cook's ability to hold a team of "other" stars together. I wonder why that is not being recognized more widely??
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Post by Orpheus on Nov 29, 2004 18:28:07 GMT -5
I wonder why that is not being recognized more widely?? Could it be that some people (Big 12 coaches included) just don't subscribe to the same logic being tossed around in this thread? The word in Austin is that NU's taking the crown this year; nobody here is trying to steal their thunder. That doesn't take away from UT's accomplishment's this season though, and I for one am a very proud longhorn. Hook'em
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Post by huskervbfan on Nov 29, 2004 18:34:03 GMT -5
Could it be that some people (Big 12 coaches included) just don't subscribe to the same logic being tossed around in this thread? The word in Austin is that NU's taking the crown this year; nobody here is trying to steal their thunder. That doesn't take away from UT's accomplishment's this season though, and I for one am a very proud longhorn. Hook'em Without Pavan in the mix, Topic clearly deserved the POY and even with her, Topic still may have been my choice. By the way though, did you see who National POW is this week ;D
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Post by gobigred25 on Nov 29, 2004 19:33:48 GMT -5
Who on this board was in attendance when Texas played at Nebraska? Did you notice what Elliot did to stop the Huskers' slaughter of the Longhorns.? The genius switches that broke the Huskers' tempo? Yea...I didn't catch it either!!. He sure looked frustrated at first, though! By the end of the game he looked bored, tired, and ready to go home for Thanksgiving. As far as expectations, honestly I thought preseason the Huskers were overrated. I figured our passing would be inconsistent, and that the switch back to a 5-1, mixed with new players and poor passing, would allow a team or two to take one from the Huskers on the road. But instead, this team responded, improving as the season progressed. Dani B did a great job running the offense with so many players, and many different personell situations, in the mix. Nebraska was consistent throughout the conference season. Coach Cook is vital to the Huskers' success...take him away and the Huskers' do not finish with a perfect conference record. He is the Best Coach in the Big XII. Is anyone willing to say, who watched the Huskers play at least once this year, that Cook had little to do with his team's consistent dominance this Big XII season, going to 5 games only once? ?
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