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The popular thinking around the AAC is that the race for league basketball player is down to two guards, Nic Moore of SMU and Quenton DeCosey of Temple.
DeCosey should prevail, especially considering what happened on Thursday night as Temple beat Memphis, 72-62, to clinch at least a share of the league title. Everyone expected No. 24 SMU to win the league title this year and be ranked in the top 25. No one expected Temple to be there and the No. 1 reason has to be DeCosey. The Owls are 13-1 in games in which DeCosey has scored 15 or more points, and how far the Owls (19-10, 13-4) go in the postseason is really about how far DeCosey wants to take them.
For now, though, he has taken them far enough to finish first in a league in which the media had them pegged as the No. 6 team in the preseason polls. Moore has SMU in the same place, but because DeCosey has lifted the Owls beyond their expectations, he should be the POY.
Going into Thursday night’s game, DeCosey was averaging 15.9 points per game, with six rebounds and nearly three assists a game. He scored 13 against Memphis, but his mere presence on the court enabled the other four starters to reach double figures.
The beauty of the 6-foot-5, 180-pound player’s game is that he is fluid and handles the ball well enough to create his own shots so even double-teaming him is problematic. It will be hard to keep the Owls out of the NCAA tournament with a regular season league title, but having been snubbed a year ago, the Owls will want to earn the automatic bid in the league’s postseason tournament.
They have to know by experience now the best way of getting that bid is by giving DeCosey the ball.
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