WCC Conference Awards

League Play
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WCC announced awards.
WCC Announces 2023-24 Men’s Basketball All-Conference Awards - West Coast Conference (wccsports.com)

Bal was 1st team, Marshall and Tilly Honorable Mention, Ensminger All-Frosh Team.

Marciulionis landed the MVP over Mogbo, Watso and Ike. Hard to argue, being on the 1st place squad gets you some bonus points with most voters. May have been Mogbo if it was voted on a month ago, but his #'s came back to earth the 3 or 4 weeks of the season.
Saxen was Defensive POY…should have been Watson IMO, far more versatile and impactful player. I suspect the logic for some was: ‘SMC’s defense was outstanding so someone from SMC deserves the Def POY’.

Happy for Bal but I suspect votes weren’t unanimous…you could make an argument for Roberston or even Hickman or Turner over Bal.

Also, happy for Marshall and Tilly. A little surprised Tilly got the nod over O’Neil. Tilly had the pre-season hype; O’Neil struggled a bit with his shooting early season but steadily improved and his advance metrics within WCC play were tops on the team, even better than Bal.

On the women’s side…congrats to Tess Heal and Olivia Pollerd who landed on the 1st team. Plus Madi Naro made the All-Frosh team.

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Many Zag fans are apoplectic that Ike was skipped on both POY and Newcomer. They probably have a point, though Mogbo’s efficiency numbers in general and in conference are solidly above Ike (and even above Marciulionis). Ike’s counting stats are better than both, especially against the top of the conference, so some of it comes down to whether you buy into the Torvik or KenPom algorithms being more reliable on “overall quality” than their individual components.

I’m glad they have created a Frosh of the Year award. I am guessing that the conference decided last year that it was unfair to Mahaney that Podz was the obvious choice for Newcomer of the Year even though Mahaney had an incredible season in his own right. With the transfer portal, it’s hard to see the Newcomer of the Year being a frosh player all that often for the foreseeable future. Brownridge was one of only a couple true freshmen in the last decade or so to win it (Suggs and Holmgren being the others I can think of w/o looking it up).

I’m happy for all of the players, especially Ensminger, who I really do think could develop into a Defensive POY candidate in a season or two.

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