Grading Mark Titus' All-American Teams And Award Winners

So last night after Ohio State effectively ended their embarrassing season by losing a Must Win game against the worst team in the Big Ten Tournament seed wise, Titus says to me....hey, let's record tonight instead of coming in at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow before another long day of streaming. Fine. Credit to him, we did zero reflecting on the Buckeyes. They deserve zero national attention. I'm an Akron Zips guy for the rest of March anyways. But what we did do was release Mark's All-American teams and awards. They are as follows:

Player of the Year: Cooper Flagg

Grade: A+

He's exactly right here. I wasn't sure this was the answer as early as two weeks ago, but Auburn has dropped two in a row, losing their status as one of the best resumes of all time. Now, for me, it comes down to who is the best basketball player in the country. That is unequivocally Cooper Flagg. Johni Broome will get some votes, but no one else in the nation should.

Coach of the Year: Tom Izzo

Grade: A

I mean, I guess there's a handful of worthy candidates across the country, but in my mind, it comes down to either Tom Izzo or Rick Pitino to actually win the award. I was 100.0% positive that Titus was picking Pitino from how he's acted all season, but I do agree that ultimately Izzo should win the award because he had ZERO members on the All-Big Ten first and second teams, yet he won the conference, by the end, with ease.

1st Team:

Cooper Flagg (Duke)

Johni Broome (Auburn)

Braden Smith (Purdue)

Mark Sears (Alabama)

Kam Jones (Marquette)

2nd Team:

Walter Clayton (Florida)

John Tonje (Wisconsin)

Chaz Lanier (Tennessee)

Ryan Kalkbrenner (Creighton)

PJ Haggerty (Memphis)

3rd Team:

Zakai Ziegler (Tennessee)

Eric Dixon (Villanova)

JT Toppin (Texas Tech)

RJ Luis (St. Johns)

Chucky Hepburn (Louisville)

Grade: B

As a whole, I do agree with about 13 of the 15 guys making this list. I have no problem with the group of players. I do think that Kam Jones as a 1st team All-American on the 5th seed in the Big East was a swing and a miss when Walter Clayton is sitting here averaging 17 a game for a triple headed monster of a backcourt for the future #1 seed Florida Gators. I also don't love Braden Smith on the 1st team, but I might've done the same thing by process of elimination. Other than that, I think Zakaki Ziegler making the list will probably get a little criticism, as well as Ryan Kalkbrenner making 2nd team. 

Take a listen to the newest episode of the Mark Titus Show here and chime in: