2006 All-ACC

The ACC announced their postseason All-ACC teams yesterday and as always there were a few surprises.

First Team (1st Team Votes)
J.J. Redick, Duke* (108)	324
Shelden Williams, Duke* (108)	324
Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina* (108)	324
Craig Smith, Boston College (91)	304
Sean Singletary, Virginia (51)	262
*unanimous 1st-team
Second Team
Al Thornton, Florida State	240
Guillermo Diaz, Miami	207
Justin Gray, Wake Forest	194
Jared Dudley, Boston College	176
David Noel, North Carolina	127
Third Team
Eric Williams, Wake Forest	120
Cameron Bennerman, NC State	106
Robert Hite, Miami	104
Nik Caner-Medley, Maryland	84
J.R. Reynolds, Virginia	54
Reyshawn Terry, North Carolina	54
Honorable Mention (20 or more points)
Anthony Morrow, Georgia Tech	41
Alexander Johnson, Florida State	37
Cedric Simmons, NC State	25
Zabian Dowdell, Virginia Tech	23
Coleman Collins, Virginia Tech	21

I can't really quibble with the 1st team too much though I think I would have placed Al Thorton on the 1st team instead of Sean Singletary. Understand that the voting for All-ACC is mostly based on a player's numbers in conference games since teams like Florida State play one of the weakest out of conference schedules in college basketball it isn't useful to include the points a player gets against a school like Liberty. When the ACC played the traditional round robin format it was the best way to judge a player and even with imbalanced schedules it is still the best standard to judge players.

From the 2nd team on my choices would be:

2nd Team
Sean Singletary G Virginia
Robert Hite G Miami
Justin Gray G Wake Forest
Nik Caner-Medley F Maryland
Jared Dudley F Boston College

3rd Team
Guillermo Diaz G Miami
Eric Williams F Wake Forest
J.R. Reynolds G Virginia
Alexander Johnson F Florida State
Jamon Gordon G Virginia Tech

Honorable mention
Reyshawn Terry F North Carolina
Ra'Sean Dickey F Georgia Tech

As you can guess when comparing the two I don't think much of David Noel or Guillermo Diaz. Noel is one of those players with mediocre stats on a very good team who was honored because he is a senior who blossomed into a solid player off the bench. You can yack about intangibles all you want but he isn't in the top 20 in scoring nor in the top 10 for rebounding. Jamon Gordon has all those intangibles people crave and has better production in most major categories, he just doesn't play for Baby Blue. Diaz is a gunner who only plays on one side of the court and his obsession with scoring really hurt Miami late in the season. Robert Hite was far more important to the fortunes of the Hurricanes.

Another interesting note is that the last place team had two All-ACC selections. That has never happened before in the history of the ACC. You don't often see a team like Wake Forest that has some very good talent fail so utterly over the course of a season. Makes you wonder if too many players on that team were just going through the motions for Skip Prosser.

Nik Caner-Medley certainly deserved the honor of an All-ACC selection. He has scored in double figures in each of the last 14 ACC games for Maryland. I'll write more about Nik in the post season round up in the coming weeks.