As respective sports near the end of their seasons there are always post-season awards for fine coaching and play.
What if there were the anti post-season season awards? Now we’re not going to go after 18-22 year old athletes, but million dollar coaches they are fair game.
We talked about ACC COY of the year candidates recently. Steve Forbes of Wake Forest won that award, but who are the ACC’s “anti” COY of the Contenders?
Josh Pastner, Georgia Tech
Winning the ACC Tournament in 2021, was supposed to be a foundation for Georgia Tech. Not only was there no sign of it being a foundation, Georgia Tech very nearly became a historical footnote. 1977 was the last year an ACC team went from ACC Tournament Champion to last place. Virginia pulled the tricked over 40 years ago. Georgia Tech finished 1 game out of last place to avoid the same fate. Pastner failed to land a much needed big man in the off-season and Georgia Tech found multiple ways to lose close games. They were pre-season picked 10th and finished 14th.
Chris Mack, Louisville
Chris Mack isn’t at Louisville any longer, but he left the Cardinals in such shambles after his departure at the end of January he should get some votes anyways. Mike Pegues was left to pick up the pieces, and could not overcome what was left behind. Louisville was picked 6th in the ACC in the preseason and end up 11th. Since January 5th, the Cardinal have won just 2 games. The sick stench around the Louisville basketball program is in a state I didn’t think was possible.
Jeff Capel, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh was predicted to be one of the worst teams in the ACC, and Jeff Capel certainly delivered. Pittsburgh opened the season with a loss to the Citadel, and just kept losing and losing and losing during ACC play. A 6-14 ACC record left the Panthers in 13th, which is one place higher the pre-season pick. For just meeting expectations it’s hard to give Capel the award, but he gave it a run.
Kevin Keatts, NC State
We’ve listed some strong candidates for the anti-ACC COY, but here we go with our front-runner NC State’s Kevin Keatts. Picked 9th in ACC during the pre-season, Keatts guided the Wolfpack to dead last in the ACC. At no point after mid-January did NC State play with any level of consistent quality basketball. They lost 10 of their last 11 games, and typically by double digits. They were statistically the worst defensive team in the ACC scoring and FG percentage. Sure the loss of Manny Bates hurt, but few if any ACC teams made it through the season injury free. For his efforts Kevin Keatts will return next year as NC State head coach, with an anti-ACC COY award in his trophy case.
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