Coach and Player of Year

As the MAC season hits the home stretch, people like Elton Alexander have been looking ahead to who might be the coach and player of the year.

For Coach, he is suggesting:

Coach of the Year? Arguments can be made for Witherspoon, Charlie Coles (Miami), Dambrot, Orr, Geno Ford (Kent State) and Billy Taylor (Ball State).

And he is right....arguments can be made all along the line for those people. Depending on how they finish, I am going to say right now that Witherspoon should be the first choice, but if Kent continues to win out than I think it is Geno Ford. Maybe we just say this: whoever's team wins the East should be player of the year.

Player of the Year?

Jerome Tillman (Ohio), Rodney Pierce (Buffalo), Michael Bramos (Miami), Chris McKnight (Akron), Jarrod Jones (Ball State) and Al Fisher (Kent).

Tillman has big stats on a .500 team that has struggled down the stretch; Pierce has been the steadiest on a team that dominated most of the season; ditto for Bramos without a point guard; McKnight has been the leading Zip in league play; Jones is the best player on the West leader; Fisher, named East Player of the Week for the second straight week, has arguably been better than he was last season, when he was named Player of the Year.

I personally think at this point that Tillman, who leads the conference in scoring and reboudning, has to be a first choice. You could make an argument for Bramos or Fisher if they get to the East Title, I guess. But, right now you'd be hard pressed to vote against Tillman's pretty heroic effort on an average MAC team.

Jones is probably a lock for freshman of the year.