Unscientific Predictions: Preseason Big East Men's Basketball Awards

Big East Media Day is tomorrow, so it's time to apply our stringent scientific methods to attempt to figure out how the Big East coaches may have voted to hand out the preseason awards. From the voting for the men's and women's soccer leagues and the volleyball end of things, there seemed to be a bit of a bias towards the teams that were in the Big East last year. Will that carry over to men's basketball? Well, it's probably unlikely to affect anyone's voting for preseason Player of the Year...

Preseason Player Of The Year: Doug McDermott, F, Sr., Creighton - Well, I mean, DUH. Dougie McBuckets is going to get national All-American attention all year long as a player that had a legitimate opportunity to enter the NBA Draft, but elected to return to school for one more year. He led the Missouri Valley in scoring (23.2 ppg) a year ago and was third in rebounds (7.7 rpg). He also had a Novak-ian touch from behind the arc, shooting 49% from distance. He was the MVC Player of the Year in what I have to figure was a runaway vote. Plus, I just wanted the opportunity to pick a guy who's officially a walk-on as conference Player of the Year. Also: I want it noted for the record that I picked McDermott before his picture went up on BigEast.com's Media Day Central.

Preseason All-Big East Team:

Semaj Christon, G, So., Xavier
Bryce Cotton, G, Sr., Providence
Davante Gardner, F, Sr., Marquette
JaKarr Sampson, F, So., St. John's
Markel Starks, G, Sr., Georgetown

Christon was second team all-Atlantic 10 and A-10 Rookie of the Year after finishing seventh in scoring (15.2 ppg) and fifth in assists (4.6 apg), Cotton is the only returning guy off of last year's all-Big East first team, Gardner is the reigning and defending Big East Sixth Man of the Year, Sampson was the 2012 BE Rookie Of The Year, and Starks was Third Team all-Big East last year and is the best returning three point shooter in the league.

I also considered Kadeem Batts, (F, Providence), Fuquan Edwin (G, Seton Hall), D`Angelo Harrison (G, St. John's), and Grant Gibbs (G, Creighton), but if the league goes the way they have in the past, they'll name a preseason Player of the Year and five all-conference team members, so I had to leave it at just five. Harrison was the closest to making into the five, but his suspension towards the end of last season made me veer off, even though he's officially back on the active roster.

Top Five Teams:

1. Marquette
2. Creighton
3. Georgetown
4. St. John's
5. Providence

There's just too much in the Marquette front court for me to avoid making the homer pick to win the regular season title. Creighton and Georgetown are the most likely contenders for the title, while St. John's and Providence have the pieces to be contenders if they can put them together in the right order.