Kareem Maddox - Ivy League Player of the Week. - princeton basketball dot com

Kareem Maddox - Ivy League Player of the Week.

February 28, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Filed under Basketball, Princeton

For the third time this season and the first time in conference play, Kareem Maddox has been named Ivy League Player of the Week. Maddox's stat lines from the senior's final home weekend:


Min Pts    FG   FT 3FG  Rebs A S B TO PF
 29  13   6-7  1-1 0-0 1-7-8 5 2 2  3  0 84-66 W Cornell 
 31  20  7-13  6-7 0-0 3-5-8 2 0 1  1  3 66-61 W Columbia

Maddox's net points against Columbia (+8.5) were higher than Princeton's total net points (+6.5) and his offensive rating was 135.3. He was +12 when on the floor in the Tigers' five point win.

The prior evening versus Cornell, Maddox's offensive rating was 153.8 and his net points equalled +7.1. Princeton outscored the Big Red by 23 with Maddox on the floor in the Tigers' 18 point win.

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Coco said,

February 28, 2011 @ 3:07 pm

Player of the Year, in my book.

Granted, I haven't seen all the competition-- but they'd have to be awesome to surpass Kareem!

Jon Solomon said,

February 28, 2011 @ 3:23 pm

I think it is down to Keith Wright, Greg Mangano and Maddox.

If Harvard wins the league outright, it will go to Wright.

If Princeton wins the league outright, it will go to Maddox.

If there's a playoff they'll announce the POY selection mid-week and who knows.

Hopefully this doesn't end up as a 00-01 Nate Walton/Craig Austin deal where the league's leading scorer on a 12-15 / 7-7 team got the nod over the most important cog of a surprise champion.

Stuart Schulman said,

February 28, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

Thanks to Senior Night, we will not get the answer (at least technically) to the question of whether a player can start no conference games for his team and still win the league POTY.

I agree that there is now zero chance of Agho or any of the Penn guys sneaking it. It's Wright or Mangano or Maddox, period. But will winning the league outright give Maddox or Wright the POTY?

Last 30 years:

20 times, the outright league winner has produced the POTY (or a co-POTY in 2 cases)

3 times there has been a co- or tri-champion and in 2 of 3 cases the POTY played for one of the teams involved (The exception was Larry Lawrence in 1981 in a year when both Princeton and Penn featured balanced teams).

7 times, the outright league winner has NOT produced the POTY. This includes Brian Earl over MJ in 1999, Jason Forte over Judson Wallace in 2004, Joe Carrabino over Billy Ryan (and Yale's Butch Graves) in 1984, and Alex Barnett over Ryan Wittman (and Jeremy Lin) two years ago.

In a few of these cases, there may have been multiple candidates on the winning team splitting the vote...so maybe Maddox wins the POTY if Princeton wins out AND Hummer doesn't score 80 points in the next 3 games.

Jon Solomon said,

February 28, 2011 @ 7:29 pm

I maintain that...

Jordan should have won over Earl in 1999 (Sorry, Brian). League should have voted after the second Penn/Princeton game, not before.

Wallace deserved the award over Forte in 2004.

Barnett was the right choice the season he won.

Jon

Peter Clapman said,

March 1, 2011 @ 10:15 am

I believe Maddox has strong edge as a senior while the other two have another year. On the merits, Mangano has little chance since Yale generally failed down the stretch of close games, and he could not assert himself in those games. Maddox put Princeton over the top many times in close games.

Jon Solomon said,

March 1, 2011 @ 10:24 am

If Maddox wins, would he be the first Ivy Player of the Year with no prior All-Ivy acknowledgements? He didn't even get an Honorable Mention nod as a junior.

larry said,

March 1, 2011 @ 1:04 pm

I put this challenge out earlier this year: name a Tiger that had improved more over their 4 years than Kareem Maddox. We first saw him before his 18th birthday and he had many 'what is he doing' moments. Four years later he fills the games with 'wow' moments.

Steven Postrel said,

March 1, 2011 @ 4:55 pm

I've always felt that the individual awards in the Ivy League were tilted against the Tigers. Maybe because their emphasis on team play and historically slower pace worked against a single player putting up impressive offensive statistics. (Which is why Syd's POY win was so gratifying.) At a faster pace and with his appealing athleticism to go along with his stellar performance, I think Kareem has a good chance this year.

Jon Solomon said,

March 1, 2011 @ 5:57 pm

I completely agree Steven, but I might just still be sore Douglas Davis was passed over for Wroblewski as Rookie of the Year two seasons ago and that Maddox didn't get a Honorable Mention last season as consolation for Foote's deserved Defensive Player of the Year.

Also, in 2008-09 the second place team in the league didn't place anyone First Team All-Ivy (not a huge surprise) or Second Team All-Ivy (a larger surprise).

Princeton's last First Team All-Ivy selection was Scott Greenman in 2005-06.

Jon

Stuart Schulman said,

March 2, 2011 @ 12:19 pm

Jon--

Kareem would not be the first POTY with no prior recognition.

The POTY award started in 1974-75.

Our own Frank Sowinski won the POTY in 1976-77 with no prior recognition.

Jim Turner of Brown won the POTY in '85-86 with no prior recognition.

Jerome Allen shared the POTY as a sophomore in '92-'93; as a freshman he did not get the ROTY or any honorable mention.

It seems likely that Bill Bradley would have won a POTY award in his sophomore year ('62-'63) had there been such an award (which would by definition have come with no prior varsity recognition). Brian Taylor was first-team All-Ivy his sophomore year but likely would have lost a POTY vote to Dave Wohl or Corky Calhoun.