All-Big 12 teams a joke, as always
As usual, the all-Big 12 women’s basketball teams are a total farce. Ten players were picked first-team all-Big 12.
The coaches like to think that 10 players were honored. In truth, no players were honored. We see this a lot on a variety of coach-selected teams. Rather than make tough decisions, the coaches punt. Rather than honor those truly deserving, they draw a bigger circle and sing Kum Ba Yah.
I don’t know why coaches do this. The all-Big 12 defense in football is likely to have 14 members. The all-Big 12 baseball team will have 11 position players. Coaches, who talk incessantly about decision-making, refuse to make a decision in this case.
If they don’t want to make those decisions, fine. Then don’t make them. Get out of the awards business. Get out of the voting business. We’ve seen enough out of the coaches poll in college football to know that coaches either don’t have the time or the guts to make cold-hearted decisions that must be made.
So who deserves to be all-Big 12? Well, Courtney Paris, obviously. And Baylor’s Danielle Wilson and Kansas’ Danielle McCray. Beyond that, it’s tougher. I don’t think I would vote for Andrea Riley; too much turmoil out of the OSU point guard, even though she leads the Big 12 in scoring. So go with Kansas State all-around point guard Shalee Lehning and Texas A&M’s do-everything Danielle Gant.
That’s three Danielles on the first team.
On the men’s side, the coaches took the high road and went with a first team: OU’s Blake Griffin, Kansas’ Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, Iowa State’s Craig Brackins and Missouri’s DeMarre Carroll.
I would have preferred OSU’s James Anderson on the first team, probably at the expense of Aldrich, but the truth is, beyond Griffin and Collins, there are about seven or eight guys for whom you could make a good case. So no big criticism here.
At least the men’s coaches made a call. That’s more than you can say for the women’s.
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