https://nuhuskies.com/news/2019/12/11/me...n-com.aspx

I would give Roland POY as of now. He's an amazing shooter, and he makes a ton more threes than Nathan Knight and Grant Riller. Knight is an elite rebounder. Roland isn't a point guard, but he has more assists than turnovers. Matt Lewis' combination of points, rebounds, and assists looks great, but he doesn't shoot well. Nate Darling shoots threes a little worse than Roland, and shoots twos and free throws much worse than Roland. Brian Fobbs doesn't shoot well. Nobody on Hofstra shoots at a POY level. James Butler averages 14.6 points, 11.6 rebounds, and shoots .577, but it's hard to win POY at under 15 points.

To show how well Roland is shooting, I compared him to Justin Wright-Foreman's 2018-2019 and Charles Jenkins' 2010-2011, which were both senior POY seasons that were followed by being an NBA Draft Second Round pick. I gave Roland the amount of attempts at each type of shot as Wright-Foreman and Jenkins had and multiplied by Roland's percentage for each type of shot to make a season point total. Roland's values on the two lines are different because Wright-Foreman had more attempts than Jenkins. Even if you don't understand my formula, you can compare the numbers.

Roland: 1,040, Wright-Foreman's 2018-2019: 948
Roland: 835, Jenkins' 2010-2011: 746

Roland is better than Wright-Foreman was last season. Jenkins averaged 4.79 assists with 2.16 assists per turnover, so that at least partially makes up for Roland being a better shooter. I'd rate Roland about equal with Jenkins' 2010-2011, and I thought Jenkins was deserving of being one of the 15 players on the three National All-American teams. Those are not predictions of how much Roland will score, but he's averaging exactly 25, so if he plays 35 games like Hofstra did last season, he will score 875. That would be third in CAA history behind Wright-Foreman's 948 last season and David Robinson's 903 in 1986-1987.

I wonder how rare it is for POY not to be on the Preseason First Team. T.J. Williams didn't get make either Preseason Team or Honorable Mention before winning 2016-2017 POY. I'm excluding POYs in their first season in the CAA like Jerrelle Benimon and Jose Juan Barea.

To make him look better, I'll point out that NU mistakenly called Butler a mid-major when they're in their seventh season in the Big East, so he's one of two mid-majors on the list, not one of three. Furthermore, Dayton was 22nd in average attendance last season, so they had a higher attendance than most Power 5 + Big East teams. To all (or almost all) fans, playing for Dayton sounds better than playing for Northeastern.

Evan, your stats make me dizzy but I think you're right about Roland... one month into the season. Those of here at NU knew that he was the most likely to replace a lot of the points of the four guys that left.....at least early on....but no one expected this. Right now we don't have a solid top eight. Hopefully that will change and everyone will contribute more.

You may not need a solid top eight to win the CAA.