My Choice for MVP Luke Loucks. Nearly doubling his minutes from last season, Loucks had to adjust to his role as a starter. With the offense often unable to generate points, it was necessary for Loucks to grow up in the position quickly or see the season fall into an abyss. Once the light went on for him, the offense started to click.
Most Improved Player Ian Miller whose ppg average increased from 5.5 to 10.3. Hampered by suspensions he never quite got the opportunity to show what he could do last season and the beginning of this season. Once he got on the floor he was fearless and did things teammates were not able to do.
Top Newcomer Hard to pick anyone because none of the freshman saw much playing time. The one player who did was Terry Whisnant, so if someone has to be selected it would be him.
High Point of the Season That's easy .... the ACC title. Those don't come around every year for teams not named Duke or North Carolina. Clemson has never even won one.
Low Point of the Season The twenty point loss to Clemson dropping the record to 9-6 and causing anyone who followed this team to question its worthiness to be in the NCAAs.
My Grade for Coach Hamilton A-Minus. He identified that the new roles some players were put in just were not working and made necessary adjustments. In the past some of his in-game moves have been questioned. But even when the team was struggling that was not an issue. It took him awhile but he managed to push the right buttons to turn the team around. I give him an A-Minus because he never found a way to reduce the number of turnovers save for one stretch during the season.
By the way, he is not going to Illinois. Illinois has not even contacted FSU to ask permission to talk to Leonard.
What Needs to Happen in the Off Season Find somebody to play point guard. And soon. Luke Loucks at least played a backup role to Derwin Kitchen and thus had some experience playing the position. Jeff Peterson was Luke's backup. He is gone too, leaving no one with any meaningful playing time at that position.
Reasons to Look Forward to Next Season Michael Snaer and Ian Miller who both showed a flare for the dramatic, and add incoming freshman Montay Brandon. Plus Leonard was recently quoted as saying he feels next season's team will be better than this one. Just tuning in to see if he is correct is reason enough to look foward to 2012-2013.
Comments? Questions? Kudos?