Wake Forest guard Alondes Williams is The Associated Press men’s basketball player of the year for the Atlantic Coast Conference, while the Demon Deacons' Steve Forbes was named coach of the year after leading them to an unexpectedly strong season.
Duke’s Paolo Banchero was also named as newcomer of the year in results announced Tuesday.
Williams, a 6-foot-5 guard, joined North Carolina’s Armando Bacot as the only unanimous first-team picks on the AP’s all-ACC teams. He earned nine votes for player of the year, finishing ahead of Bacot (five) and Banchero (one) after voting from 15 journalists covering the ACC regional footprint.
Williams,
It was an unexpected performance from a player who had averaged 6.0 points in 2019-20 and then 6.7 points last year with the Sooners. Before going to Oklahoma, Williams had played two years of junior college.
Forbes earned seven votes as coach of the year, beating out Notre Dame’s Mike Brey (four) and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (two) as the only other coaches with multiple votes. The second-year coach has guided the Demon Deacons (23-8) to their best win total since 2009 after they were picked to finish 13th in the league in the preseason, and they hold the No. 5 seed
with the school.
The 6-10 Banchero, a top NBA prospect, earned 12 votes for newcomer of the year, with Williams earning the other three votes after transferring into the league.
On the AP all-ACC teams, regular-season champion Duke had three picks in Banchero as a first-teamer while wing Wendell Moore Jr. and big man Mark Williams made the second team. The seventh-ranked Blue Devils were the only team to have multiple all-ACC picks.
Miami’s Kameron McGusty joined Alondes Williams, Bacot, Banchero and Boeheim on the first team. North Carolina State’s Dereon Seabron, Virginia’s Jayden Gardner and Virginia Tech’s Keve Aluma joined Moore and Mark Williams on the second team.
The 2021-22 AP All-ACC team, with players listed alphabetically with name, school, height, weight, class and hometown (“u-” denotes unanimous selections):
FIRST TEAM
u-Alondes Williams, Wake Forest, 6-5, 210, Gr., Milwaukee
u-Armando Bacot, North Carolina, 6-10, 240, Jr., Richmond, Virginia
Paolo Banchero, Duke, 6-10, 250, Fr., Seattle
Kameron McGusty, Miami, 6-5, 190, Katy, Texas
Buddy Boeheim, Syracuse, 6-6, 205, Sr., Fayetteville, New York
SECOND TEAM
Wendell Moore Jr., Duke, 6-5, 213, Jr., Charlotte, North Carolina
Dereon Seabron, North Carolina State, 6-7, 180, R-So., Norfolk, Virginia
Mark Williams, Duke, 7-1, 242, So., Virginia Beach, Virginia
Jayden Gardner, Virginia, 6-6, 246, Sr., Wake Forest, North Carolina
Keve Aluma, Virginia Tech, 6-9, 235, R-Sr., Berlin, Maryland
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Coach of the year – Steve Forbes, Wake Forest
Player of the year – Alondes Williams, Wake Forest
Newcomer of the year – Paolo Banchero, Duke
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AP All-ACC voting panel:
Mike Barber, The Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch; Mark Berman, The Roanoke (Virginia) Times; Rick Bozich, WDRB-TV, Louisville, Kentucky; Lauren Brownlow, WCMC-FM, Raleigh, North Carolina; Alexis Cubit, The State of Columbia, South Carolina; Donna Ditota, The Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York; Michelle Kaufman, Miami Herald; Kevin McNamara, WPRO, Providence, Rhode Island; Craig Meyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Tom Noie, South Bend (Indiana) Tribune; Jonas Pope, The News and Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina; Adam Smith, The Times-News of Burlington, North Carolina; Ken Sugiura, Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Curt Weiler, Tallahassee (Florida) Democrat; and Steve Wiseman, The Herald-Sun of Durham, North Carolina.
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Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aaronbeardap
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More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
