The first half of the Pac-10 basketball season is in the books, and since my editors will introduce me to a guillotine if I use this space to talk football again, it is incumbent upon us to dole out some midseason awards. The honorable Mike Lazarus already gave out his Cardinal-specific team honors last week; I’ll focus on the Pac-10 as a whole, for both men and women. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Player of the Year
Men: Landry Fields, Stanford
Fields currently stands atop the heap in the conference’s tightest race in both sports. There are five players with legitimate cases for POY: Fields, Washington State’s Klay Thompson, Cal’s Jerome Randle, Washington’s Quincy Pondexter and Arizona’s Nic Wise.
Why does Landry prevail? A quick statistical look: Fields leads the Pac-10 in scoring, is second in rebounding (including fifth in offense boards), third in steals, tenth in blocks and eleventh in assists. The only other two players who approach that breadth of production are Pondexter and Wise, and yet neither is on Landry’s level. Plus, while Fields has been consistent both at Maples and on the road, Pondexter and Wise have floundered when away from home. Finally, there is no player in the conference who has had to assume the massive leadership role that fell to Fields, one that is equally impressive given that he was never in such a position before.
Women: Nnemkadi Ogwumike, Stanford
Outside readers are unlikely to continue past this sentence — homerism, I say! — but Nneka’s main competition for this spot comes from Cal’s Alexis Gray-Lawson and teammate Kayla Pedersen, and even then, Ogwumike is clearly above the rest. Like Fields, she leads the conference in scoring and is second in rebounding, both overall and on offense exclusively. But the statistic that stands out is her inhuman shooting percentage: she’s nailing 64.7 percent of her shots, while the next best, Arizona State’s Becca Tobin, sits at 53.6 percent. But it gets better: Nneka has also attempted the most shots in the conference — she has 145 total — while Oregon’s Taylor Lilley, in second, has 132 to her name.
Pedersen has a perfectly good case of her own, and indeed, the final step of her evolution into a true wing player has been one of the best storylines of the Cardinal’s season. She’s shooting tremendously from beyond the arc while also crashing the boards and playing the most minutes on the team. But Stanford’s strength stems from its post play, and Ogwumike, with her constant aggression and patented hanging jumper, has made the Cardinal tick.
Coach of the Year
Men: Herb Sendek, Arizona State
Does Johnny Dawkins have a good case? Absolutely. His optimization of talent has been nothing short of outstanding, and his in-game coaching has undressed luminaries like John Calipari. So why Sendek? He lost two first team All-Pac-10 performers in James Harden, the conference’s Player of the Year in 2008-2009, and Jeff Pendergraph, which forced the Sun Devils to enter 2009-2010 without a featured player (unlike Dawkins and Fields, for instance) and instead, a motley crew of decent starters and backups. Sendek implemented a deeper rotation and, despite a generally star-less team (Ty Abbott is as close as they come), the Sun Devils sit just one game behind Cal and Arizona for the conference lead.
Women: Michael Cooper, USC
It was a tough choice between Cooper and UCLA’s Nikki Caldwell (although Tara VanDerveer could justifiably win this award every year). Cooper gets the edge because, in his first season coaching the college game, he has led USC, a relatively young team, to wins over Cal, UCLA and Arizona State. This success has come despite losing Camille LeNoir and Nadia Parker, both of whom were All-Pac-10 honorees.
Freshman of the Year
Men: Derrick Williams, Arizona
Williams beats out Washington State’s Reggie Moore, but the reasons are clear: Williams tops Moore in scoring, is in the top five in the conference in rebounding and shooting percentage and is tied with Fields for tenth in blocked shots. Moore does dish out a number of assists and is active defensively, too, but Williams has been asked to do more for the Wildcats than Moore has for the Cougars, and he has performed valiantly.
Women: Markel Walker, UCLA
On the surface, this appeared to be a tough decision. Arizona’s Davellyn Whyte is third in the conference with 17.9 points per game and, despite being a guard, is in the top ten in field goal percentage and drains 40 percent of her threes. But outside of her scoring ability, she’s fairly one dimensional, which opens the door for the more well-rounded Walker.
She ranks in the top 10 in the conference in rebounds, offensive boards, steals and field goal percentage, all while leading the Bruins in scoring over the course of the year (Jasmine Dixon has a higher average, but has played in less than two-thirds of UCLA’s games). As with most of the awardees, the full resume matters more than a couple of impressive line items. This is certainly true here.
Add in the Bruins’ supremacy over Arizona both head-to-head and overall, and Walker takes home the midseason honor in an upset.
Wyndam Makowsky has avoided the guillotine, but sold his football-obsessed soul in doing so. Pass judgment to makowsky “at” stanford.edu.