On Monday, the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association released its 2011-12 All-ACC Men's Basketball Team. And while there hasn't been much to celebrate this season, Eagles fans can take to celebrating just a bit at Ryan Anderson's unanimous selection to the ACC's All-Freshman team.
The Lakewood, Calif., product leads all conference freshmen by averaging 7.2 rebounds a game, which ranks seventh overall. He is also second among ACC freshmen in points (10.8) and 24th overall. Anderson has led BC in scoring nine times and in rebounding a team-high 20 times, including each of the last nine games. Anderson has accounted for all six of BC's double-doubles this year.
Anderson earned ACC Rookie of the Week honors on February 19 after averaging 21.5 points and 9.0 rebounds against Maryland and Duke.
Anderson received a total of 61 votes out of a possible 62 votes cast. One voter did not vote for the All-Defensive or All-Freshman Teams. Anderson joins Duke's Austin Rivers as the only two unanimous selections to the All-Freshman team. He is joined on the All-Freshman Team by Rivers, Virginia Tech's Dorian Finney-Smith, Miami's Shane Larkin, and Maryland's Nick Faust.
Anderson also becomes just the second Eagle to make the All-Freshman Team, joining Tyrese Rice who achieved the feat in 2005-06, the Eagles first year in the conference.
Boston College, of course, gave a lot of minutes to freshmen this season. Rivers and Anderson were obvious selections, but beyond those two there really didn't seem to be any freshmen that stood out. At least not like last year, when Harrison Barnes, Travis McKie, Kendall Marshall, Terrell Stoglin and C.J. Leslie all made the All-Freshman team.
I suppose you could have made the case for Dennis Clifford -- 9.0 PPG, 4.8 RPG -- based on resumé alone, but I don't have any real gripes with the All-Freshmen selections. Maybe Miami's Shane Larkin? I don't know. Nah, I'm cool. Nevermind.
As for the rest of the honors doled out by the ACSMA on Monday, BC struck out. Then again, when you have a 4-12 season, you typically don't place any players on the All-ACC First, Second, Third or All-Defensive Teams. BC received no honorable mentions, either.