With the regular season just wrapped up last night, I have decided to share my thoughts on who should win the 2008-09 Big East Player of the Year award. To me there are three legitimate candidates (as everyone has already discussed). Now it is time to chose a winner between UConn's Sr. PG Renee Montgomery and So. SF Maya Moore and Louisville's Sr. SF Angel McCoughtry. Now if the season was in the balance tonight then hands down the winner would be Montgomery. Her performance tonight at Rutgers was outstanding (especially coming of that disaster shooting on Senior Day). But the Big East regular season title was already decided, so tonight was more for bragging rights so this game doesn't count. So now we look to the 5 key games that won Connecticut its 17th Big East Regular season crown. I am not solely looking at numbers, but that is what I will put down for the sake of tangibles (but intangibles will be a factor).

Game 1, UConn vs. Syracuse (Doty injury & last year won in final minutes)
RM: 14p, 3r, 11a, 2t, 0s, 0b, 37m
MM: 40p, 13r, 2a, 0t, 2s, 0b, 36m
UConn wins 107-54.....POTG (Definitely) Moore

Game 2, UConn vs. Louisville (Game of the BE Season...title on the line)
RM: 11p, 0r, 6a, 3t, 3s, 0b, 35m
MM: 26p, 11r, 4a, 0t, 3s, 1b, 37m
AM: 24p, 13r, 1a, 3t, 4s, 2b, 37m
UConn wins 93-65.....POTG Moore

Game 3, UConn vs. Rutgers (one word...Rutgers)
RM: 15p, 3r, 6a, 2t, 1s, 2b, 39m
MM: 24p, 10r, 3a, 2t, 3s, 1b, 39m
UConn wins 75-56.....POTG Moore

Game 4, Louisville vs. West Virginia
AM: 27p (10-26), 9r, 2a, 5t, 6s, 0b, 4pf, 34m
West Virginia wins 79-70 (before this game UofL only sat one game behind UConn with a lot of BE games to play (7 for UofL and 8 for UConn) and this pretty much blew there shot of catching the Huskies for the title)

Game 5, UConn vs. Notre Dame (only team to lead UConn in 2nd half this season)
RM: 20p, 4, 8a, 2t, 5s, 0b, 39m
MM: 18p, 8r, 4a, 0t, 1s, 1b, 38m
UConn wins 76-66.....POTG Montgomery

So while Montgomery stepped up huge (as did Moore) in the 2nd half against ND, UConn then had a 2 game lead on UofL, so a loss only would have made the Rutgers finale a night to clinch the BE title outright over UofL. So to sum up this argument my choice for BE POTY is Maya Moore. She plays her heart out every possession, plays big in big games, plays with great show/sportsmanship, is consistant night in/night out, defends, rebounds, takes and makes great shots, and without her UConn would not have its 17th BE RS crown.