Quote from: AndOne on March 19, 2018, 04:26:14 PMQuote from: Whit-MAN on March 19, 2018, 03:32:04 PM
I'm a little surprised Tim Howell only made the HM list, after being a pre-season 1st teamer.
No reason to be surprised especially when you consider that 3 of the other pre-season first teamers didn't make any AA team, not even HM! And that's not the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last.
If you want to be surprised about something, consider 2nd place Oshkosh had no AAs at all, and the only player mentioned from national championship winner Nebraska Wesleyan could do no better than to join Howell on the HM list. 🤔
I'm surprised by all of this, actually. Personally, I think performing well against the best teams in the country should carry more weight than being a statistical outlier for a mediocre team... and watching NWU against the Blues, they appeared to have five or six deserving players!
Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on March 19, 2018, 04:13:01 PMQuote from: Whit-MAN on March 19, 2018, 03:32:04 PM
I'm a little surprised Tim Howell only made the HM list, after being a pre-season 1st teamer. He averaged just under 19 points per game in only 22 minutes, shooting .527-- he has to easily be one of (if not THE) most efficient scorers in the nation with those numbers, despite ostensibly being the focus of every opposing defense (having been a Pre-Season 1st Team AA). His career averages along those lines aren't far off-- 17.2 points on 51% shooting... which would be GREAT numbers for a post player, but are absurd for a guard who drives and shoots floaters. Last season, by comparison he averaged one more point per game, but had fewer assists in 25 minutes per game.
Obviously winning or a team's record doesn't play in the selections, but just for fun-- Whitman is 60-3 in the last two years, which is more than a little crazy. Howell's teams were 104-14 in his time at Whitman, which is the best winning % in all of D3 and close to the best in all of NCAA basketball, according to the Whitman website. I realize it's not a career award, but hard to believe that there are 12 better guards out there. I would argue whatever small 'dips' happened in Howell's numbers actually HELPED Whitman win this year, as you saw other guys (Hewitt, Duckett, Osborne) come into more of their own.
Starting with the fact that Howell was a 2nd-Team All-Region... he was already limited with just how high he was going to get slotted.Quote from: Whit-MAN on March 19, 2018, 03:32:04 PM
Also, for the record, there are not 10 players (possibly including Howell) in the country better than Austin Butler. He'll never get an award simply because it's (legitimately) too hard for voters to stay up and watch him, and because he's not a scorer so his numbers will never be sexy enough, but the guy dominates SO many games for WM.
Butler wasn't nominated to All-Region... starts there. Trust me, the D3hoops.com staff lamented about that fact.
I thought Howell probably should have been an All-Region 1st team selection for the same reasons as I mentioned earlier. Essentially identical numbers to the previous season, in fewer minutes, despite wearing the #1 target all season long.
Butler not being nominated is atrocious....did someone drop the ball there, or what?!