Life as a dad often means bidding farewell to the snooze button, embracing the symphony of early morning commotion and children knocking on your door to inquire if they are able to get up even though the sun is not yet up. Even in the rare occasions your sleep isn’t interrupted, more often than not your internal clock prompts you awake when you really wish it would kindly turn off. Last off-season, in those instances instead of staring at the ceiling awaiting your kid alarm clock, I would often awake and turn on the TV where I was captivated by Australian Rules Football on my screen.
Only mostly understanding what was going on thanks to my familiarity to it’s Emerald Island cousin Gaelic Football, it was easy to be drawn in by the pace and physicality of the game. To draw basketball comparisons, it combined the speed and scoring of the Alabama offense this season with a physical game that made the old Big East seem like a church league. Finding out that former Oklahoma State basketball walk-on Mason Cox was on a team called Collingwood earned my allegiance and I followed the Cox and the Magpies as they eventually became Premiership Champions.
Following the AFL gave me insight to the unique rules, customs and events in Australia’s game that aren’t found elsewhere. One of them that particularly stood out was the awarding of the Brownlow Medal, the player of the year/MVP equivalent for the AFL. Instead of having players and media vote for the award winner at season’s end, the Brownlow is decided by the referees. At the end of each game, the refs vote for the three players that are “best on ground” for each game. Their top pick gets 3 points, the second pick gets 2, and the third gets 1. Those points are dramatically revealed at season’s end at a ceremony where the winner is the player with the most points over the season and is awarded with the prize.
Learning about the process of awarding the Brownlow struck my curiosity and I thought doing something similar for the Atlantic 10 would be a unique way to see which player was the most impactful contributor to his team during the season. Unfortunately, my efforts to contact referees for their votes have been unsuccessful. When I inquired with TV Teddy Valentine who his three “best on court” were during the recent Loyola-Dayton game, he dramatically made a charge gesture then turned his back on me. Tony Chiazza threatened to ban me from ever attending another basketball game when I approached him.
Instead of trying to solicit the referees thoughts, we instead can use the statistics each player output in Atlantic 10 conference game instead. Using the game score calculation, we can measure the impact each player made in their team’s conference games. Then with the game score for players for each game calculated, we can find the three players with the highest game score in each game and award them their “Best on Court” points with 3 points going to the player with the highest game score, 2 for the second highest, and 1 for the third highest. With the regular season ended, we can sum the total “Best on Court” points for each player for the entirety of conference play and find our third place, second place, and top award winner. With what will become surely a prestigious honor, I thought it only right to name the award after the current A10 commissioner and Ghosty arch nemesis Bernadette McGlade, aka The Bernie.
With the numbers calculated, let’s first look at the Atlantic 10 players who fell just short of the medal stand for this year’s Bernies. All put forth great efforts this season to be proud of, but were just short of a medal.
Now, onto our Bronze Medal Bernie winner. Averaging 17.1 points per game, 8.4 rebounds a game, and. 1.5 assists a game for the George Mason Patriots, it is Keyshawn Hall!
An injury slowed Hall down towards the end of the season, but the transfer from UNLV established himself early in the non-con and conference play as one of the top players in the Atlantic 10 this season. His 26 Bernie points put him three points above Fordham’s Kyle Rose in the standings and a mere 6 points behind our second place player. His ability to score and rebound was crucial for Tony Skinn’s first George Mason side, with Hall using his strength to be the leading defensive rebounder for the Patriots at a 25.5% defensive rebounding rate.
Often matched up against larger defenders, Hall was able to use his agility frequently to find space and hit jump shots, shooting an above average 35.4% from three-point range and an impressive 42.42% from the mid-range. Hall was also able to force opposing defenders into frequently fouling and sending him to the free throw line, drawing 5 fouls against him per 40 minutes of play leading to a free throw rate of 39.8%. When Hall was at the line, he hit over 85% of his freebies, making the most of those trips. There has been speculation about Hall’s future, but no matter where he is lacing them up next season, Keyshawn Hall will always have his bronze medal Bernie award.
Our Silver Medal Bernie winner is another player who transferred in to the Atlantic 10 this season and another playing in the state of Virginia. His 18.5 points per game, 2.5 assists per game, and 1.3 steals per game helped lead the Richmond Spiders to a share of the Atlantic 10 title, Jordan King is our Silver Medal Bernie recipient!
Controversy surrounded his predecessor leaving Richmond, but Jordan King slotted into the Spiders starting point guard spot with ease this season. Transferring to Henrico County from East Tennessee State, King was second in the conference in scoring at 18.5 points per game on a high 25.8% usage. His 42.6% three-point shooting was eighth in the conference and was an improvement of 10.9% compared to last season on a similar number of attempts. It wasn’t just on the offensive side of the ball that King contributed to, putting up an impressive 2.2% steal rate while only getting called for 1.8 fouls per 40 minutes of play. With so many questions about the Richmond roster coming into the year, King helped lead a consistent Spiders team to their first Atlantic 10 regular season title and with his 32 Bernie points, he will also have a Bernie Silver Medal to put next to his piece of net cut down after the Saint Joe’s game!
With only the top prize left to be handed out, our Gold Medal Bernie winner has seemingly had a lock on our inaugural top award for quite some time. Though he finished only 3 points above Jordan King in the race for the Bernie, signifying a closer race than many would have expected at the start of conference play, it is no surprise that Dayton’s DaRon Holmes is the winner of the 2023/24 Bernie Gold Medal!
The best player for the only Atlantic 10 team seemingly assured of an appearance in March Madness made his mark across multiple statistical fields this season. Holmes led the Atlantic 10 in scoring, averaging 20.2 points a game. He was so often relied upon by the Flyers to carry them out of trouble and on to a victory, with DaRon putting up the highest usage rate of any A10 player at 31.2%. Despite often being the high usage focal point of the Flyers offense, Holmes was still able to score the ball efficiently which is illustrated by his 59.1% effective field goal %. He continued to be a force at the rim, scoring on 76.8% of his shots at the rim, 4th highest among all A10 players. The biggest development in the Flyers star’s game was the emergence of a reliable three point shot. Holmes shot a well above average 38.1% from the perimeter this season, taking 20.8% of all of his shots from beyond the three point line. You had to respect Holmes perimeter shooting while still fearing his ability to tear you apart on the inside.
With the development of DaRon Holmes all-around offensive game, it almost seemed like his defensive prowess was overlooked this season but Holmes was still the anchor of the Flyers defense and one of the best defenders in the conference. His 7.6% block rate was 7th highest among all A10 players, combined with a 1.5% steal rate illustrated just how ferocious a defender Holmes was. Using Bart Torvik’s PORPAGU! efficiency stats, Holmes ranked first in the A10 in Points Above Replacement both on defense and overall. The Flyers are set to be competing in March Madness for the first time since 2017 and it is largely thanks to DaRon Holmes.
We will see when the conference announces their season award winners if there is any overlap between the Bernies and the A10’s own awards. Of course, if the conference wishes to add the Bernies to their post-season award list, they just need to slide into my DMs and we can make it happen. Congratulations to all our winners and to all the A10 fans who have followed me on Twitter this season, enjoy the last few games of the season. We will all soon be counting down the days until the 2024/25 season, so make these last days of the season count.
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