This Pac-12 Friday miniseries on college basketball in the Conference of (real NCAA) Champions and its Midwest partners, the B1G, will continue to explore league Players of the Year until 1985, the first year of the expanded NCAA Tournament. That being said, 1990 was a banner year for the two conferences: 11 teams made March Madness, with 3 of those schools making it to the Sweet 16—only to experience some drama.

1990 Pac-10 PoY: Gary Payton, G, Oregon State (original, confirmed)

Arizona and Oregon State tied for the regular-season title, with a three-game edge on the next-best school. Also, this was the last year of a 4-year experiment with a conference tournament for the Pac-10: the Wildcats won that. The voted PoY was Beavers guard Gary Payton, who would go on to NBA fame, of course. Did the voters get it right? Or should it have been one of the Arizona players? Let’s look closer.

Well, Payton led the league in scoring (25.7 ppg), assists (8.1 apg), and steals (3.4 spg)—earning a Triple Crown of sorts. But the way he did it was impressive: Payton topped the next scorer by 5.1 ppg, the next dime dealer by 1.7 apg, and the next thief by 1.6 spg. That’s some dominance. One Oregon State teammate did finish third in blocks, but otherwise, the Beavers were all Payton—and then some. We confirm, easily.

1990 B1G PoY: Steve Scheffler, C, Purdue (original); Steve Smith, G, Michigan State (revised)

Michigan State won the league by two games over Purdue and three games over defending national champion Michigan. The PoY vote went to Boilermakers center Steve Scheffler, however. He didn’t appear on any of the Top 10 lists for the five major statistical categories, although he did top the conference in effective FG and true shooting percentages. But … what kind of center gets only 6.1 rebounds per game?

There’s no way he deserved this hardware. Meanwhile, Spartans G Steve Smith was the only MSU player to appear in the Top 6 of any major category—and he topped the conference in scoring (20.2 ppg), was fourth in assists (4.8 apg), and seventh in rebounds (7.0). Heck, he out-rebounded Scheffler … and Smith was basically a point guard! Therefore, we re-assign this trophy to Smith, who got screwed in the NCAAs.