Basketball Caleb McConnell wins 2023 Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year Award

[rob kight]

Congratulations to Caleb on this well deserved award. And guess what , with the return of a healthy Mag, we have a shot for him to win the award next year!!

 

[Scangg]

I think it was the home Purdue game last year, the announcer commented on how Caleb kept wrecking Purdue offensive plays
He wasn’t making steals right then, but doing enough to disrupt the offense sets and patterns . This might be one thing an average fan might not notice, like a steal is so much more obvious

Caleb was out of his mind that game. It's exactly what he was doing. Just completely wrecking plays. Purdue couldn't get into their offense

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

What's the difference between the award he received today and the Naismith?

Wonder if this opens up a possible slot on NBA roster for a defensive specialist?

MO

I don’t know if he’ll get there or not, but I think his chances are better than most think. What often gets lost in these kinds of projections is that more often than not being a good college scorer does not translate to being even an average NBA scorer. This is because they earn most of those points scoring off of guys that are nowhere near NBA level defenders.

With defensive stars, their role is always to stop the best guy on the opposing team. DPOY calibers have demonstrated they can do this against the best. I guess what I’m saying is - Caleb would be a very good defensive player at the next level. Maybe not the best, but easily in the top quartile and that could improve with continued training. His offense would be at the bottom, but at the NBA level, so too are many guys like Cam (for example) because they can’t get their shots off. Cam wouldn’t score that much more than Caleb in the NBA. Neither would score much. You could pick many many college players who scored double digits efficiently and draw the same conclusion.

Caleb would need to fix his FT shooting to have a shot though. A defensive stopper would be brought in at times in key situations where the opposing team is in the bonus. If fouled, he must be able to put those points on the board.