Players Who Repeated As ACC Player Of The Year
It’s not very common anymore
Talk of RJ Davis’ chances of becoming a repeat selection as the ACC Player of the Year, already started, is bound to follow us throughout the 2024-25 season. That will be especially true on nights North Carolina overpowers an opponent and TV talkers need material to fill air time.
Are we due for a POY repeater? It’s been nearly two decades since the coach of the LA Lakers, JJ Redick, won in both 2005 and 2006.
Davis is an exceptional scorer from the off-guard spot and led the ACC last season with a 21.2-point average. Given plenty of exposure on a prominent team he could well be the beneficiary of an important shift in circumstances in the college world.
Consider it an unintended consequence of the NIL era.
Carolina’s coaches apparently decided a while back that Davis is best utilized as a shooting guard. But at 6-feet he apparently lacks the size and extraordinary, Muggsy Bogues-like athleticism to play off the ball in the NBA. That surely affected the New Yorker’s decision to follow the example of former teammate Armando Bacot, a two-dimensional player who earned much NIL income while staying at Chapel Hill for an extra season.
Which may well set up a mano-a-mano competition for the honor with Duke’s Cooper Flagg, who started the season as an All-American.
We’ll see whether experienced leadership wins out, or whether a player with Flagg’s hype and overall game can be as good as advertised.
Over the past decade the best Blue Devil freshmen left quickly to become pros. Three of the last four Duke POYs — Jahlil Okafor (2015), Marvin Bagley II (2018), and Zion Williamson (2019) – were won and done, as well as one and done. Tre Jones won in 2020 as a sophomore.
Multiple honorees account for nearly a third of the ACC POYs chosen. But during this century repeat winners are rare. The sole exception was Redick, the POY in 2005 and 2006. The guard led the ACC in scoring in both seasons, increasing his average by five points per game in his final year to repeat as the award winner.
Two players each won the ACC award three times: NC State’s David Thompson and Virginia’s Ralph Sampson. Thompson was so good he might have garnered the honor four times except he arrived a year after freshmen became eligible for varsity competition. Sampson was the ACC’s 1980 Rookie of the Year, the same season Maryland’s Albert King was the league’s scoring leader and ultimately the POY. That year the Terps finished first during the regular season and lost the ACC Tournament final to Duke.
By the way, the school that supplied the most repeat POYs over the ACC’s first 70 seasons is Wake Forest.
| TOP DOGS Winners of Multiple ACC Player Of The Year Awards |
|
|---|---|
| Player, School | Years Won POY |
| Dickie Hemric, WF | 1954, 1955 |
| Len Chappell, WF | 1961, 1962 |
| Larry Miller, NC | 1967, 1968 |
| John Roche, SC | 1969, 1970 |
| David Thompson, NS | 1973, 1974, 1975 |
| Ralph Sampson, V | 1981, 1982, 1983 |
| Len Bias, M | 1985, 1986 |
| Danny Ferry, D | 1988, 1989 |
| Tim Duncan, WF | 1996, 1997 |
| JJ Redick, D | 2004, 2005 |
| *National Consensus Player of the Year | |