All-Ivy hoops selections: Reaction

Player of the Year: I wrote last month that Princeton's Kareem Maddox should get this award, and I still believe it. Maddox is the most versatile player in the league, the best defensive player in the league (as was voted) and a dynamic offensive threat. He's the backbone of the Ivies' best defense, and defense is too often underrated when it comes to MVP voting. Don't get me wrong - Keith Wright was a solid selection and is a great player. There are very few true post presences in the Ivy League, and he's one of them. His numbers look great, but I just don't think he has the same impact as Maddox on both ends of the floor. If anything, the two should have split the award - especially since their teams split the Ivy title.

Rookie of the Year: Based on the all-Ivy selections (I'll get to that soon), it's clear that the voters stressed winning. The Rookie of the Year award was the exception. McGonagill was the lead guard for the Bears and played a bigger role on his team than Miles Cartwright or Laurent Rivard. But his bigger role and his strong numbers (15 ppg, 6 apg in Ivy play) likely stemmed from his team's 11-17 record (4-10 Ivy). On a bad team with a weak backcourt, McGonagil had a much better opportunity to step in and play than Cartwright or Rivard. He was forced to carry more of the scoring and ballhandling load because of his team's lack of depth and talent - much like Zack Rosen for Penn last season. In my mind, it is more impressive for a rookie to step into a winning environment and contribute under high-pressure circumstances. Since the top 3 candidates have very similar numbers, I would have given this award to a title-winner: Laurent Rivard. Either way, though, Brown got a real steal in McGonagill.

Defensive Player of the Year: I already confessed my soft spot for Maddox above, so of course I think the league got this one right. Maddox is a legitimate defensive force with the ability to guard four, if not all five positions. His athleticism allows him to be a shutdown individual defender and a good shot blocker.

First Team: I don't think you can really argue with these selections. The voters combined players whose efforts carried lesser talented teams to solid seasons (Agho, Rosen, Mangano) with the best players on winning teams (Maddox, Wright). The big surprise here is Mangano, who seemingly came out of nowhere to jump from 7.5 points, 5.5 rebounds per game to 16 and 10. Much like Maddox, there is no player in the league like Mangano, who anchored the Yale defense and provided an inside-out post threat.

Second Team: This one was a little shakier. Though I like that four of the five players came from the champions, I could make the case for two replacement players: 1) Brian Barbour or Christian Webster over Wroblewski and 2) the one all Penn fans want to hear, Jack Eggleston over Hummer.

Wroblewski seems random among this group, almost like a reward to Cornell for the past three seasons. His team was 6-8 and he shot 39 percent from the floor. Much like McGonagill, his nice numbers come from the fact that he needed to take shots to keep his young team afloat. Webster, meanwhile, shot an efficient 44 percent from the floor. You could say it's easier to get open looks on a great team like Harvard, but from what we saw out of the Big Red this year, they really space the floor and try to spread the ball around, so an efficient scorer could wait for good opportunities. Barbour put up 15 points per game during Ivy play for Columbia, fourth in the league, and shot 44 percent on the year.

Those of us who follow the Quakers day-in and day-out know the huge impact Eggleston has on this program, both on and off the court. Jack and Ian Hummer posted fairly similar numbers, so I'd think the voters would give the nod to a senior who's given his heart and soul to the Ivy League over a sophomore. Even basketball-wise, Eggleston is the more impactful player. Hummer is a beast on the low block (56 percent shooting) but can't take his game outside like Jack can. Eggleston really slowed down the second half of the Ivy season, but that's because teams began honing in on him, staying glued to him out to the three-point line. If he had the wealth of scorers around him that Hummer did, he would have found openings all season and contributed even more than Hummer. Bottom line: if there were a draft of Ivy players before the season, I think coaches would take Eggleston over Hummer in a second (the same argument can be made for Maddox over Wright for POY). Instead, Eggleston will leave Penn as a ring-less "honorable mention"