When it comes to awards in the ACC, there’s a voting bias that leans toward North Carolina. This is hardly news to fans of Maryland, especially those old enough to remember when four of the league’s seven schools were from the Tar Heel State.
The bias explains how Maryland, with an all-time winning percentage of .508 in conference games, has put 25 players on the All-ACC first team, while fellow charter members N.C. State (.494) and Wake Forest (.473) have had 37 and 33 players so honored.
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This brings us to this year’s ACC scoring leader Terrell Stoglin of Maryland, who was named to the ACC second team on Monday, garnering fewer votes than four players from the University of North Carolina.
“It was very disappointing,” Stoglin said. “But at the same time, I’ll just use that as motivation.”
Stoglin shouldn’t take it personally. He is the fifth ACC scoring leader to be left off the first team. Interestingly, all were from schools outside of North Carolina. Clemson’s Butch Zatezalo (1968, 1969), Georgia Tech’s Mark Price (1983), and Clemson’s Terrell McIntyre (1999) were the others.
Of the 37 players from North Carolina schools who have led the conference in scoring, all have made ACC first team. Of those, 25 have been named unanimously (67.6 percent). Of the 22 ACC scoring leaders from outside of North Carolina, only five have been unanimous first-team choices (22.7 percent).
Other ACC scoring leaders from Maryland who came up short of unanimous selection include some illustrious names — Albert King (1980), Len Bias (1985), Walt Williams (1992) and Joe Smith (1995). Bias was voted unanimously the second year (1986) that he led the ACC in scoring.
So Stoglin has some good company, though all of the other Terps at least made the first team.
Maryland coach Mark Turgeon is taking the high road, suggesting that Stoglin’s snub is more about the Terps’ win-loss record.
“It shows you that winning is important, and being a complete player,” Turgeon said on his radio show on Monday night. “This will be a teaching moment for us with Terrell that we gotta win more, and he’s gotta do more than score, and then he’ll be a first-teamer. I still think he deserved it.”
– Kevin Dunleavy
