Re: TJ Ford

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

Mark,
  
In the Big 12 area TJ's anointment as Player of the Year has been met with a 
lot of head scratching.  TJ was third in the voting for AP Big 12 POY and 
also lost out on the Coaches POY award.
The thought here is that he was helped by the Dick Vitale hype machine in a 
big way.  I remember last year when he was calling Jay Williams the best 
point guard in the country at any level.  Talk about hype!  Needless to say 
the guy has a habit of getting carried away.

This is not a knock on TJ, as I've written before I think he is an amazing 
talent. He's an excellent ball handler, very good passer, see's the floor as 
well as anyone in college in a long time......BUT, he really needs to 
continue working on his shooting and despite the ESPN piece to the contrary, 
he is not a very good defender at this stage of his career.  He's surrounded 
by players that are good defenders and that seems to mask the problem well 
enough.  
He is very young and he will get better at both, but I don't know that you 
can vote for someone for National Player of the Year when he does have such 
obvious holes in his game.

I can't remember the last time that there weren't one or two players who just 
stood head and shoulders above everyone else in the country which has been 
the case this year.  I think part of the problem is that most people want to 
give the POY to the best player on the best team.  Who's the best team?  
Arizona and Kentucky would be the first two teams that come to mind for just 
about anyone.  But those are both teams where the whole is greater than the 
sum of the individual talent.  Makes for an interesting post season in 
College basketball.

TAM