{"id":18,"date":"2014-03-12T17:04:37","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T17:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/?p=18"},"modified":"2014-06-12T19:02:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T19:02:29","slug":"doug-mcdermott-named-big-east-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/doug-mcdermott-named-big-east-player-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug McDermott Named Big East Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday afternoon in New York, Doug McDermott was named the 2013-14 Big East Player of the Year by a unanimous vote of the league\u2019s coaches. The nation\u2019s leading scorer was widely anticipated to win the honor, but to win it unanimously shows just how much of a no-brainer it truly was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome to be given this award, because there\u2019s so many great players in this league,\u201d McDermott told the media on Wednesday. \u201cTo be named player of the year is a huge honor. Coming from the Valley, I never imagined I\u2019d see this day. It\u2019s really special, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ll never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s now a three-time Player of the Year, having won the award each of the previous two seasons in the Missouri Valley. That\u00a0makes him the first player in college basketball history to win such an award in two different leagues. \u201cI didn\u2019t know I was the first,\u201d McDermott noted, \u201cbut that\u2019s pretty cool. The Valley is a great conference, and I have a lot of great memories from there. But I\u2019m glad I get to start making some new memories in this conference, and I\u2019m looking forward to the tournament this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

His stats are overwhelming \u2013\u00a0in addition to his 26.5 scoring average this season, McDermott is shooting 52.2 percent from the field, 44.7 percent from 3-point range and 86.7 percent from the foul line \u2014 but the leadership he learned over the summer with Team USA helped him guide the Jays to a 24-6 record and second place in the league, and those were also big factors in winning the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great summer with Team USA,\u201d McDermott told the assembled NY media. \u201cI learned so much from the players and coaches, especially how to be a better leader on the court. I\u2019m a senior, and this is my last go-round. Those great coaches, Coach Beilein, Bob McKillop, Frank Martin, I learned a lot of stuff from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to McDermott being awarded the Player of the Year, the Big East also named DePaul freshman guard Billy Garrett, Jr. as Big East Rookie of the Year, and Villanova head coach Jay Wright as Big East Coach of the Year. Garrett made quite the impression, finishing the regular season as the\u00a0top freshman scorer in the Big East, averaging 12.4 points per game. He also led all Big East freshmen with 90 assists and an 81.9 shooting percentage from the foul line, and he earned Big East Rookie of the Week honors five times.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Wright\u00a0was very deserving of Coach of the Year honors after piloting Villanova to the Big East regular-season title with a 16-2 record and a 28-3 overall mark. Both win totals were school records, which is especially impressive when you consider they were picked fourth in the Big East Preseason Coaches\u2019 Poll, yet are currently ranked No. 3 nationally in both the Associated Press and the USA Today polls.<\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, McDermott was named\u00a0First Team All-American by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, becoming just the 18th man in history to be a USBWA First Team All-American three times. He\u2019s\u00a0already been named National Player of the Year by\u00a0 Sporting News, BleacherReport.com and NBCSports.com, and a First Team All-American by all three outlets as well as Sports Illustrated, the latter of which put him on their cover this week.<\/p>\n

Creighton opens up Big East Tournament play with a 6pm tip against the winner of Wednesday night\u2019s game between Georgetown and DePaul. The game will be televised on FS1 nationwide.<\/p>\n

.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday afternoon in New York, Doug McDermott was named the 2013-14 Big East Player of the Year by a unanimous vote of the league\u2019s coaches. The nation\u2019s leading scorer was widely anticipated to win the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}