CAA coaches ponder awards

By Joe Conroy

Published: February 26, 2008

As the college basketball season enters its final weeks and Colonial Athletic Association teams begin preparing for the conference tournament, coaches are beginning to ponder their choices for postseason awards.

With stellar performances nearly every game night the names of George Mason senior Will Thomas, Hofstra senior Antoine Agudio and Virginia Commonwealth junior Eric Maynor are on the tips of all the CAA coaches’ tongues this year.

Because of the presence of several players worthy of this season’s CAA Player of the Year award, it’s not an easy decision to make by coaching staffs.

“It’s tough and I’m going to sit down with my entire staff and our sports information people when we get the ballot and we go through a rough draft of it,” Hofstra coach Tom Pecora said Tuesday. “It’s something I take very seriously. I think it’s important for the right thing to be done here and we’ve got a lot of classy coaches in this league that aren’t going to manipulate ballots for their own guys.”

Coaches are restricted from voting for their own players for the Player of the Year honor, all-conference teams or the all-defensive team making the choices even more difficult.

One way VCU’s Anthony Grant helps narrow the field is team performance.

“I think anytime you look at individual accomplishments you also have to take into consideration what the team does,” Grant said.

That stance puts players like Maynor (VCU is 21-6 overall and first in the conference with a 13-3 league mark), Thomas (Mason is 19-9, 11-5) and Vladimir Kuljanin (UNCW is 18-11, 11-5).

Maynor is second in the conference in scoring with a 18.1-point per game average, first in assists with 5.19 per game and among the best in 3-point shooting percentage.

Thomas leads the CAA in rebounding with 10.5 a game and is averaging a double-double each game with his 16.3 points per contest (he also has a conference-best 14 double-doubles this year).

“We’ve got three, I think, that should get consideration,” Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. “Will is a top candidate for Player of the Year and I think he should be considered for Defensive Player of the Year. Folarin Campbell has come on extremely strong during conference play… and I think John Vaughan has been our most consistent perimeter player.”

Meanwhile, Kuljanin has been a major factor for the Seahawks end of the season turn-around. UNCW is currently tied with Mason for second in the division with just two games remaining in conference play. He’s averaging 10 boards per game to go with a 13.2 point average. Kuljanin leads the CAA in field goal percentage at a near-70 percent clip (67.7).

“There are several guys that stand out for me,” Grant said. “I look at a guy like Will Thomas, the type of impact he’s had on his team. He’s had a tremendous year, not only in-conference but pre-conference as well.

“And Antoine Agudio, [with] the expectations on him, to go out and do what he’s done over the course of the year — I’m sure he’d like to have won more games, but with the [defensive] attention he gets from everybody every game and the way he makes his teammates better is really impressive.”

Agudio moved into fourth place on the CAA’s all-time scoring list last week with 2,212 points (he is tied with former Patriot Kenny Smith). Agudio is the conference leader in scoring this year with 22.8 per game and is just the ninth player in league history to top the 2,000-point mark. He is 10 points shy of breaking the Pride’s all-time scoring record, a mark that has stood for 43 years.

“It’s young guys playing their tails off and that’s what it’s about,” Pecora said. “It’s going to be a hard decision.”

JMU’s Keener to step down

After just four years at the helm for the Dukes, coach Dean Keener announced Feb. 22 that he would relinquish his command of the James Madison men’s team.

Keener, 42, compiled a 30-80 with two games remaining on JMU’s regular season schedule.

Running the Dukes’ program was Keener’s first opportunity as a head coach after working as an assistant for 16 years including stints with Madison, Virginia Tech, Southern Methodist, Southern California and Drake.

James Madison defeated Morehead State 89-57 the next day in a BracketBuster game, a strange experience for Keener.

“I’d certainly not be telling the truth if I said it wasn’t different,” Keener said of pre-game preparations. “But I think because there was such a quick turnaround [since the announcement], trying to jump into game-mode and we as a staff owe it to the kids.”

Keener added in a released statement announcing his decision that he felt the program has made strides over his four years despite a disappointing record.