Who votes for all-ACC awards? These people determined soon-to-be-announced 2022 team
The ACC men’s basketball player of the year, coach of the year, and all-ACC teams will be announced on the ACC Network on Monday morning, what has become an annual ritual that proceeds every spring like the arrival of pollen.
Debate will follow, as it always does, and the integrity and intelligence of the voting pool will be questioned, slandered and disparaged.
Before the mud is slung, a question: Who votes for those awards anyway? For the first time, we have that answer. The News & Observer asked the ACC for the full list, which it agreed to provide.
(And why do they have such a pro-North Carolina bias? They don’t, actually; that’s an ACC urban legend that has remarkable persistence.)
Since the 2017 season, voting has been conducted by a panel assembled by the ACC whose membership, until now, has been largely secret. Each school selects three media members, one of whom in all but two cases is one of the team’s radio announcers; each head coach gets a vote; and there’s another 20 at-large votes for a total of 80. Those, it turns out, all go to ESPN.
Complaints about the voting being slanted toward North Carolina — the school and the schools in the state, depending on one’s personal bias — may have had a scintilla of validity pre-2017, when the voting was conducted by members of the Atlantic Conference Sports Media Association, an organization that had representative membership when it was an eight- or nine-team league, but, post-expansion, had almost none from any of the new additions. Although for all the complaints, it was hard to actually pin down any injustice. (ACSMA was not responsible for Randolph Childress’ selection as most outstanding player of the 1995 ACC tournament not being unanimous; that’s another story entirely.)
Still, rather than have dueling sets of awards — coaches vs. media and so on, which happened in women’s basketball last week, where the ACC panel (that includes coaches) named one rookie of the year and the coaches (on their own) another — the ACC took control of voting and parceled it out school-by-school in an attempt to achieve some sort of geographic balance.
“The goal every year is 100 percent participation,” ACC spokesman Andy Fledderjohann said. “We get everyone’s approval ahead of time, rather than just blindly sending ballots out. Everyone who agrees to be on the panel, the expectation is that they vote.”
There are still quirks in this process, naturally. Because of the radio announcers, coaches and ESPN/ACC Network announcers, a full 61 percent of the voting pool is employed, directly or indirectly, by the ACC or its partners. (Two of Boston College’s three “media” votes went to school employees, who unlike coaches are not prohibited from voting for their own players.)
Some of the media members who have covered the league for decades aren’t permitted to vote on awards by their employers. And in some markets, schools nominate voters who unquestionably would not qualify for a ballot in others — ironically, some of the schools that complained the most about the old process seem to have the most trouble finding voters to nominate under the new one.
But there are always quirks in the awards process. It’s part of what makes for a compelling argument. Just one example: There are no write-in candidates, and in 2020 Duke nominated Tre Jones for player of the year and Vernon Carey for rookie of the year, trying not to split votes but denying Carey any consideration for player of the year.
As for real transparency, the publishing of every voter’s ballot as is the case in the Associated Press football and basketball polls or across professional sports, from the NHL to the Baseball Hall of Fame, that’s never going to happen. The coaches, to be certain, would never agree to that, although many media members publish their ballots in the interest of honesty and integrity.
Still, as with any award, poll or honor, the arguments are a feature, not a bug. That’s never going to change, although at the least this should dispel the notion that there’s any North Carolina bias left in the voting. Those four schools have the same pull as anyone else, and they’re certainly not voting as a bloc.
2022 ALL-ACC VOTING POOL
Andy Backstrom (BC), Rivals.com affiliate
Earl Grant (BC), coach
Josh Maurer (BC), team radio announcer
Dan Rubin (BC), team website
Brad Brownell (Clemson), coach
Alexis Cubit (Clemson), The (Columbia) State
Don Munson (Clemson), team radio announcer
Terrence Oglesby (Clemson), The Field of 68
Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), coach
Brendan Marks (Duke), The Athletic
John Roth (Duke), team radio announcer
Steve Wiseman (Duke), The News & Observer
Gene Deckerhoff (FSU), team radio announcer
Leonard Hamilton (FSU), coach
Curt Weiler (FSU), Tallahassee Democrat
Chris Nee (FSU), 247sports.com affiliate
Andy Demetra (GT), team radio announcer
Josh Pastner (GT), coach
Kelly Quinlan (GT), Rivals.com affiliate
Ken Sugiura (GT), Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Brett Dawson (Louisville), Louisville Courier Journal
Jody Demling (Louisville), 247sports.com affiliate
Mike Pegues (Louisville), coach
Paul Rogers (Louisville), team radio announcer
Michelle Kaufman (Miami), Miami Herald
Jim Larranaga (Miami), coach
Chris Stock (MiamI), 247sports.com affiliate
Joe Zagacki (Miami), team radio announcer
Jones Angell (UNC), team radio announcer
Greg Barnes (UNC), Inside Carolina/247sports.com affiliate
C.L. Brown (UNC), The News & Observer
Hubert Davis (UNC), coach
Matt Carter (NC State), The Wolfpacker/On3.com affiliate
Kevin Keatts (NC State), coach
Jonas Pope (NC State), The News & Observer
Tristan Tucker (NC State), The Technician (student paper)
Mike Brey (Notre Dame), coach
Tom Noie (Notre Dame), South Bend Tribune
Tim Prister (Notre Dame), 247.com affiliate
Tony Simeone (Notre Dame), team radio announcer
Jeff Capel (Pitt), coach
Jerry DiPaola (Pitt), Trib Total Media
Bill Hillgrove (Pitt), team radio announcer
Craig Meyer (Pitt), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jim Boeheim (Syracuse), coach
Steve Infanti (Syracuse), WSYR-TV
Matt Park (Syracuse), team radio announcer
Mike Waters (Syracuse), Syracuse Post-Standard
Mike Barber (Virginia), Richmond Times-Dispatch
Tony Bennett (Virginia), coach
Greg Madia (Virginia), The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress
Jimmy Miller (Virginia), team radio announcer
Mark Berman (VT), Roanoke Times
David Cunningham (VT), Tech Sideline
David Teel (VT), Richmond Times-Dispatch
Mike Young (VT), coach
Stan Cotten (WF), team radio announcer
Steve Forbes (WF), coach
Les Johns (WF), 247sports.com affiliate
Christian Odjakjian (WF), Old Gold and Black (student paper)
Cory Alexander (TV)
Jay Alter (TV)
Debbie Antonelli (TV)
Jay Bilas (TV)
Dan Bonner (TV)
Randolph Childress (TV)
Jordan Cornette (TV)
Dalen Cuff (TV)
Wes Durham (TV)
LaPhonso Ellis (TV)
Luke Hancock (TV)
Malcolm Huckaby (TV)
Evan Lepler (TV)
Mike Monaco (TV)
Dave O’Brien (TV)
Kelsey Riggs (TV)
Anish Shroff (TV)
Tom Werme (TV)
The big debate
Opinion appears to have coalesced around Wake Forest’s Alondes Williams — with a chance to become the first player to lead the ACC in scoring and assists since the latter became a stat in 1973 — as the top candidate for ACC player of the year, but North Carolina double-double machine Armando Bacot and Duke freshman star Paolo Banchero both have their supporters.
While Banchero is certain to be freshman of the year and N.C. State Dereon Seabron should be named most improved, there’s an interesting debate over defensive player of the year among Duke’s Mark Williams, North Carolina’s Leaky Black and Miami’s Charlie Moore.
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 1:55 PM with the headline "Who votes for all-ACC awards? These people determined soon-to-be-announced 2022 team."
