Ibby Jaaber, Big 5 POY?

So Penn senior Ibrahim Jaaber has won Big 5 Player of the Year honors. Congratulations to Ibby on winning, and to Penn for its first win of the award since Tony Price in 1979, but I'm not sure Jaaber should have won, and might not have even been the best candidate on his own team.

Don't get me wrong, I think Jaaber was a fine choice for Ivy League Player of the Year, and the Quakers would have gone nowhere without him. But I think that the Big 5 POY could go in three different directions, and I don't think Jaaber fit any one of them.

First, the Big 5 could have given the award simply to the best player in the city. In my opinion, that was Curtis Sumpter of Villanova, who averaged a team-high (in the Big East) 17.4 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, along with an 81 percent foul-shooting percentage.

Jaaber, on the other hand, averaged 15.9 points per game and 4.5 rebounds, but did tie a Penn record for assists in a season and broke the Ivy League career record for steals. He was great, but I think Sumpter was greater.

Second, the award could have gone to the best player on the best team, which again was Sumpter, of a 4-0 Big 5 team and the higher-seeded (by five lines) of the Big 5's two NCAA Tournament teams.

Finally, the Player of the Year could have been the player who was best during the Big 5 games. Without going into the box score of each team's Big 5 games, I think that Jaaber is ruled out on his own squad. Consider the numbers of fellow senior Mark Zoller in Penn's four Big 5 clashes as compared to Zoller:

Points per game: Zoller 24, Jaaber 20.5
Rebounds per game: Zoller 7, Jaaber, 4.8
Assists per game: Jaaber 7.8, Zoller 2.3
Steals: Jaaber 9, Zoller 8
Turnovers: Zoller 9, Jaaber 18
FT Pct: Zoller 95.5 (21-22), Jaaber 54.5 (12-22)

Also worth noting are Zoller's huge clutch free throws to beat Temple this year.

The two players are close, as they were in the Ivy POY race, but this time I think Zoller gets the edge.

Again, this is no knock on Jaaber, I just think that he wasn't the best candidate for this award.