Reece Beekman Snubbed on Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Watch List

Beekman was excluded from the 15-player watch list for the 2023 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year

For the second season in a row, Reece Beekman was inexplicably left off of the 15-player watch list for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, which was released on Friday:

Naismith Men's Defensive Player of the Year 2023 Watch List

Chase Audige, Northwestern
Leaky Black, North Carolina
Moussa Cisse, Oklahoma State
Jaylen Clark, UCLA
Zach Edey, Purdue
Andre Jackson Jr., UConn
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton
Caleb McConnell, Rutgers
Kevin McCullar Jr., Kansas
Shakeel Moore, Mississippi State
Marcus Sasser, Houston
Jamarion Sharp, Western Kentucky
Oscar Tshiebwe, Kentucky
Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee

In an award which historically overvalues statistics such as steals and blocks, Beekman's drop-off in steals per game average (from 2.1 last season to 1.4 currently) is most likely to blame for his exclusion from the watch list this time around. A great deal of that decline in steals production is due to the several week period during which Beekman was playing with an injured hamstring. He had a stretch of five games in which he recorded only one steal. 

With that said, Beekman still has a very convincing argument as the best on-ball defender in the ACC and one of the best lockdown defenders in all of college basketball. Beekman's elite defense, especially against some of the top guards in the country, just doesn't show up in the box score. Additionally, with Virginia's defense predicated upon forcing bad shots rather than forcing turnovers, steals are not generally a category in which UVA's defenders excel. 

While many ACC folks would recognize Reece Beekman as a favorite to win ACC Defensive Player of the Year, it is alarming to see that North Carolina's Leaky Black made the watch list for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year rather than Beekman. Black is a terrific defender and deserving of being on the list, but certainly not any more than Reece Beekman. 

When Reece Beekman was left off of last year's list, it marked the first time in four years that Virginia did not have a semifinalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, an award which has only been around since 2018. De'Andre Hunter (2019), Mamadi Diakite (2020), and Kihei Clark (2021) were named semifinalists for the award in the previous three seasons. 

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