The ACC announced its annual all-league teams and individual award winners March 5 following votes from a panel of all 15 ACC head coaches and 38 selected media members.
UNC-Chapel Hill junior forward Justin Jackson won ACC Player of the Year, receiving 24 of the 53 possible votes. Following Jackson was Wake Forest sophomore forward John Collins with 15 votes, and Notre Dame junior forward Bonzie Colson with eight votes. Jackson averaged 18.1 points per game, ranking seventh in the ACC.
Although Jackson helped lead the Heels to a 27-7 regular season record and an ACC regular-season title, it can be argued that Collins meant more to his team. While Jackson led UNC in scoring, he had the luxury of playing with a supporting cast of all-ACC second team selection junior guard Joel Berry, and two monsters on the glass in senior big men Isaiah Hicks and Kennedy Meeks. According to ESPN, this season Collins took nearly 30 percent of Wake Forest’s shots while shooting 62 percent from the field and grabbed nearly 17 percent of the team’s available offensive rebounds.
Collins averaged close to a double-double for the season with 18.9 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. In the nine regular-season ACC games the Deacs won, the sophomore forward’s numbers shot up to a staggering 21.5 points and 10 boards per game. Jackson’s 19.7 points, 4.9 boards and 2.5 assists in Carolina’s 14 ACC regular-season wins is more than impressive. However, when the usually hot-handed junior’s game was “off,” Berry and his teammates could pick up the slack. Collins was the driving force in all of the Demon Deacons wins and led a flawed Wake Forest team to a .500 record in the best conference in America and its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2010.
To the surprise of very few, NC State freshman guard Dennis Smith Jr. took home ACC Freshman of the Year honors in an overwhelming fashion, receiving 36 of the total 53 votes. The freshman sensation finished the regular season with 18.1 points per game, good for sixth in the conference, and leads the league in assists with 6.2 per contest. Smith’s 1.94 steals per game was also good for second in the ACC and he became the first player in conference history to register two triple-doubles against league opponents in an entire career. Along with the Freshman of the Year honor, Smith was named to the all-ACC second team and was named to the conference’s All-Freshman team.
Although other freshmen had great seasons, most notably Florida State forward Jonathan Isaac and Duke forward Jayson Tatum, Smith’s consistency separated him from the rest. The future NBA Draft lottery pick was held to single-digit scoring on only two occasions in the regular season, one of those times coming against a Louisville team ranking third in the ACC in scoring defense. Smith also scored 30 or more points, an ACC best, four times.
However, scoring was not the only thing the explosive guard could do, as he stuffed the stat sheet like very few others in the country. Smith tied Richmond senior forward TJ Cline for the most triple-doubles in D-1 basketball this season with two. Although NC State had yet another forgettable season, finishing with a 4-14 record in ACC play and a 15-17 overall record, Smith will go down as one of the best freshman in Wolfpack history. The “once-in–a-generation” talent is currently projected to be the sixth overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, according to Draftexpress.com.
