I’ll address the obvious point first: Caleb Love would also, obviously, be a more-than-worthy selection for this entirely meaningless honor. His 22 points were significantly flashier than Garcia’s equivalent contribution and that does mean something as far as elevating the team’s energy and pulling it with him as opposed to a quieter contribution that doesn’t have that same effect on momentum — Love ultimately did have a higher +/- than Garcia, for whatever you think that’s worth. But I’m going with Garcia here for a couple of reasons: first, Love is significantly more likely than Garcia to get POG honors in multiple games for the rest of the season, so I’d like to spread some shine around; second, Garcia’s performance was a significant step-up for a position group that needed it, while Love turned in a performance slightly better than what’s expected of him; third, Love scored really well but didn’t have as good a floor game as we’ve come to expect of him while Garcia had more than 5 rebounds for the first time since the Purdue game.
UNC vs Elon Player of the Game: Dawson Garcia
