Jon Scheyer doesn't need to lobby for Cameron Boozer for any ACC or National awards. The Duke superstar true freshman is going to win both the ACC and National Player of the Year awards in a landslide. He's not only the best player in the country this season, but he's having one of the single greatest college basketball seasons of all time.
But Boozer alone is not the reason the Blue Devils are 28-2 and viewed as the favorite to win the National Championship. Scheyer and his staff assembled a strong supporting cast around the superstar, with one of the most important players typically coming off the bench.
On Saturday night against North Carolina, Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown will step onto the floor at Cameron Indoor as a Duke player for the last time. It'll be senior night for Brown, who will receive a raucous ovation from the Crazies in attendance.
As he should. Because Brown is college basketball's ultimate glue-guy, and arguably the single best defensive player in the country. If Boozer is the National Player of the Year, Scheyer believes Brown should be the Defensive Player of the Year, if not nationally then at least in the ACC:
“I think he should be talked about as the national defensive player of the year type of guy, if not ACC, defensive player of the year,” Scheyer said.” His versatility, his passing. His numbers back it up. If you look at his defensive box score, when he's on the floor, you look at his steal rate, you look at a lot of different things that he does.”
Jon Scheyer believes Maliq Brown should be up for Defensive Player of the Year
Duke has the No. 1 defense in college basketball, per KenPom's defensive efficiency metric. And the single best defensive player on the team is Brown, who might also be the single most effective defender in the country.
Brown leads college basketball in Defensive BPM (box plus-minus) at 8.8, according to Bart Torvik. He's a full point ahead of second place, Michigan center Aday Mara. The difference between Brown and 3rd place (Virginia's Ugonna Onyenso) is the same as the difference between 3rd and 29th.
He's lapping the field defensively. He also leads the country in defensive rating with an absurd 78.9, which means the Blue Devils are giving up less than 79 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor.
He's also second in steal percentage at 5.6, behind only Wright State's TJ Burch.
The only thing working against Brown is that he only averages 19.4 minutes per game, which could lead voters to give those awards to players carrying heavier workloads.
But there's no more impactful defender in the country than Brown, whether or not he's ultimately rewarded for that or not.