BASAs Day 3 - Rookie of the Year

Climbing the Ladder hands out the third BASA of the year today for Rookie of the Year. And the winner is.... (click here)

But what about yesterday's award for Coach of the Year? The results went like this:

1- Dominic Kinnear
2- Steve Nicol
3- Peter Nowak
4- Colin Clarke
5- Mo Johnston
5- Fernando Clavijo

As scaryice noted, Kinnear got all the first place votes except for one. Well, I was that one vote. Here is my ranking:

1- Steve Nicol (New England)
2- Dominic Kinnear (San Jose)
3- Peter Nowak (DC U)

I went back and forth between Nicol and Kinnear on this one. I think both had excellent runs and both pulled their clubs up after disappointing 2004 results, but I think it was harder for Nicol. San Jose is a really good team, but some of their greatness this year has to do with the 8 matches they played against expansion teams, which gave them 16 points. New England only played half as many matches against Real and Chivas earning 9 points in the process. The final point score for the two sides was San Jose 64, New England 59. This makes San Jose 5 points better then New England. However, the Quakes got 7 more points from expansion club matches. Since I think the Eastern Conference was the harder conference this year, I decided to give the nod to Nicol.

As far as Nowak, I think he was good, but I don't think his club shined as much as the talent in his possession could have let it.