[Goose]

I guess I could say that about all awards, which seem to be based in part on hype and visibility, as Stanford has discovered painfully all too often--usually in football.  Fans, journalists, and even coaches will vote for the great player they know well over the great player they know less well.  And being at UConn means you will be known well.  Iowa or Arizona, not so much.

One of the appealing things about sports (except those scored by judges) is that there is a "score" and you win or lose based on that and that alone. It is "pure". Yes, officials make mistakes and sometimes you win or lose based on a lucky bounce, but at least both teams are on the field and can play well enough to take these random variables out of the equation. Awards, OTOH are the opinion of a a self-selecting group that may know little or nothing about the choice they are making. They also may know a lot about some of the players and nothing about others. In any case, it is an opinion. IMHO it means exactly nothing. It may be entertaining and fun to discuss, but it isn't based on anything "real" or even approximately objective.
FWIW, this applies to the Director's Cup and other similar awards. The scoring system is arbitrary and ever changing. The playing field isn't even approximately level. Each athletic program has different goals, different constraints, and different opponents to match up with. How can one be "better" when the objective function is a vector with different types of elements? Maybe fun to discuss, but objectively meaningless.

[Goose]

I guess I could say that about all awards, which seem to be based in part on hype and visibility, as Stanford has discovered painfully all too often--usually in football.  Fans, journalists, and even coaches will vote for the great player they know well over the great player they know less well.  And being at UConn means you will be known well.  Iowa or Arizona, not so much.

One of the appealing things about sports (except those scored by judges) is that there is a "score" and you win or lose based on that and that alone. It is "pure". Yes, officials make mistakes and sometimes you win or lose based on a lucky bounce, but at least both teams are on the field and can play well enough to take these random variables out of the equation. Awards, OTOH are the opinion of a a self-selecting group that may know little or nothing about the choice they are making. They also may know a lot about some of the players and nothing about others. In any case, it is an opinion. IMHO it means exactly nothing. It may be entertaining and fun to discuss, but it isn't based on anything "real" or even approximately objective.
FWIW, this applies to the Director's Cup and other similar awards. The scoring system is arbitrary and ever changing. The playing field isn't even approximately level. Each athletic program has different goals, different constraints, and different opponents to match up with. How can one be "better" when the objective function is a vector with different types of elements? Maybe fun to discuss, but objectively meaningless.