Notes On The Player Of The Year Race

Individual awards will be released later this week by the Summit League after votes from a collection of coaches, sports information directors, and media members are tallied. In the meantime, Mike Brown of the Tulsa World conducted a straw poll of his own to see how some of the awards races are shaping up. His poll showed that four players received votes for Player of the Year: Reggie Hamilton, Dominique Morrison, Nate Wolters, and Alex Young. It's likely that the POY will indeed come out of this group of four, and it could be a very close race given all that these players have achieved in 2011-12.

While only one player can get the coveted Player of the Year honor, these talented players are near locks for making the conference's First Team. IPFW's Frank Gaines should also be comfortably included in this mix. Such a quintet would be one of the strongest that we have seen in the Summit League era. Now that the regular season is over, we can take a look at a series of statistics showing just how impressive these five players were on offense. 

The first table presents basic scoring data and advanced metrics regarding efficiency and usage (for league games only). Players are listed in order of the percent of minutes played. 

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Not only did all of these players average more than 20 points per game in league play, they also did so with reasonable efficiency. The average offensive rating of the quintet is 117, which is an absurd level for guys who are as involved in the offense as these fellas. 

The next table presents the additional numbers that these players put up over the course of the 2011-12 conference season. You'll find per-game statistics like rebounds, assists, and turnovers, but also tempo-free versions such as offensive and defensive rebounding rate, assist rate, and turnover rate. 

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As evidenced by these figures, all of these guys are capable of filling up the stat sheet. Moreover, it's impressive that they've all been able to keep their turnovers at bay despite dominating the ball for large periods of their time on the court.

The stats tell one story -- one of five individuals who have proven to be dynamic scorers. Surely voters will also consider defense, leadership, team accomplishments, and the overall impact these players have on the game. Whatever happens in the Player of the Year voting, we can be sure that those selecting will have a tall task in choosing the one who rises above the rest.