MEYER: What awards will BU win?

With the winter sports slate winding to a halt and teams preparing for their respective postseasons, the time has come for end-of-the-year awards to be doled out. Although they do serve as a nice way to commend exemplary athletes on their accomplishments, the business of awarding these honors really is tricky. There’s no concrete formula to determine the most deserving candidate, and that often leaves the definition of the award subject to debate ‘-‘- an endless comparison of apples and oranges.

Should it just be given to the best player on the best team? How about breaking down the MVP acronym and rewarding the person who is most valuable to their team and its success?

A large part of BU’s overall athletic achievement this year has come from strong performances from various individuals. A few of these winter sport athletes now find themselves in contention for postseason awards, and deservingly so.

With all due respect to the rest of BU’s athletes, the conversation has to begin with Colin Wilson because the trophy that he is vying for is the most prestigious. Of course, I’m talking about the Hobey Baker Award, presented annually to college hockey’s most outstanding player. It is essentially the hockey equivalent of the Heisman Trophy in terms of its meaning and prestige.

After being taken with the number seven pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft (the first college hockey player chosen), Wilson has been on a torrid pace this year, registering 44 points ‘-‘- a culmination of 14 goals and 30 assists. He has been listed as the as the number one candidate on Inside College Hockey’s ‘Hobey Tracker’ for the past month or so, and the cast of characters listed behind him seems to change every week.

Wilson’s importance to the Terriers extends far beyond his stats, though. Just as Reggie Jackson proclaimed himself the ‘straw that stirred the drink’ for the Yankees of the late 1970s, Wilson is just that for this BU squad. He is a creator out on the ice, starting offensive attacks, distributing the puck superbly and opening up opportunities for his teammates on a regular basis.

While this team has had a season to remember so far, none of it would have been possible without Wilson’s immense talent and contribution. He is the best player on the top-ranked team in the nation, and I fully expect to see him lift the Hobey Baker trophy in April, becoming only the second player in BU history to accomplish the feat (Chris Drury did so in 1998).

Granted, it’s not as vaunted as the Hobey Baker Award, but the America East Men’s Basketball Player of the Year honor certainly counts for something. It just so happens that BU has two players in the hunt for it this year in Corey Lowe and John Holland. They both have matched, if not exceeded, preseason hype with regard to their individual performances this year. They provide a potent one-two scoring punch for the Terriers, with Holland averaging an even 18 points a game and Lowe averaging 16.6 a game.

They have both put in remarkable efforts and stepped up their games on an injury-plagued team, and for that they should be seriously considered for this award.

That said, though, I don’t see either one of them hoisting the hardware. Voters probably like to deny it, but the success of a player’s team plays at least something of a role in their final determination. The plain truth is that BU faded down the stretch, losing three of their final five contests. While these defeats weren’t Lowe or Holland’s fault per se, the duo is still hurt by them, fair or not. And Lowe leading the league in turnovers per game doesn’t really help his cause, either.

With Lowe and Holland out of the running, who will the award go to? Reigning AE POY Marqus Blakely of Vermont has seen a drop in his scoring and rebounding from last year, so he’s not repeating. Darryl Proctor of UMBC had an excellent year, finishing in the top three in the conference in points and rebounds, but his Retriever team finished toward the bottom of the conference standings. I’d probably hedge my bets on Binghamton’s D.J. Rivera, the America East’s leading scorer on its top team, to take home the distinction.

By declaring the America East Women’s Basketball Player of the Year a contest, I would be flat-out lying ‘-‘- this award belongs to BU’s Jesyka Burks-Wiley. She’s had a stranglehold on it for quite some time now. Think Secretariat at the 1973 Belmont. It’s that lopsided. Burks-Wiley averages over 18 points per game, collects 7.5 rebounds per game and has a field-goal percentage (.466) that’s twice as high as the graduation rate for Memphis men’s basketball. She has also won the conference’s Player of the Week award in five out of nine weeks since AE play began.

And let’s not forget that she has been the dominant performer on a team that is undefeated in conference play and hasn’t lost a game this calendar year. As a player and an athlete, Burks-Wiley epitomizes what a Most Outstanding Player should be. I could probably go on all day about her skill set and importance to the team, but for brevity’s sake, I’m going to have to stop here.

Here’s to an excellent 2008-09 winter sports campaign. Let’s hope the Terriers can sustain this success in the postseason.