Maynor, Brad Greenberg earn T-D honors

Of all the things Eric Maynor did in the 2008-09 season for the VCU Rams, one thing stands out above all others.

Maynor made his teammates better.

"I knew coming in that every team was going to try to key on me," Maynor said of his senior season at VCU. "That's good. You see two on you, you've got to find the open man.

"I think I did a great job of that."

Maynor thinks correctly. He averaged 6.1 assists per game to go along with his 22.4 scoring average and 3.6 rebounding average.

He led VCU to the regular-season and Colonial Athletic Association tournament championships and into the NCAA tournament.

Maynor has been named the state's college player of the year by a panel of writers and editors at The Times-Dispatch. He was a unanimous selection.

Maynor also is a first-team, all-state selection, the third consecutive year he has been a first-team choice. He was the only unanimous selection on the first team.

Maynor's success this season was mirrored by Brad Greenberg, the coach of the Radford Highlanders. In 2007-08, the Highlanders suffered through a 10-20 season.

This season, Radford won the Big South regular-season title, captured the Big South tournament and earned the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.

Few saw that coming. Greenberg was the architect of it all.

He has been selected as The Times-Dispatch state coach of the year.

"We worked hard to create what we hope will be our basketball identity," Greenberg said. "It was based on five core principles.

"Be a fiercely competitive team. Improve defensively, individually and as a team. Make better decisions with the ball and don't beat ourselves with turnovers. Get the ball inside. And stress the team concept."

Greenberg is the second member of his family to win the T-D coaching honor. His brother Seth Greenberg, coach at Virginia Tech, was last year's award winner.

Joining Maynor on the first team are Chavis Holmes from VMI, Malcolm Delaney and A.D. Vassallo from Virginia Tech and Art Parakhouski from Radford.

The second team members are Larry Sanders (VCU), Kevin Anderson (Richmond), Sylven Landesberg (Virginia), Seth Curry (Liberty) and Travis Holmes, Chavis' twin brother, from VMI.

As proud as Maynor is of what he accomplished individually, he was even happier with what the Rams accomplished as a team.

"We knew we had something special," Maynor said. "We never stopped working.

"We wanted to win the regular-season championship, win the tournament championship and advance in the NCAA tournament. We ended up falling short in the NCAA, but it was a great year other than that."

VCU lost 65-64 to UCLA in the first round of the tournament.

Greenberg has done just about everything in basketball that can be done. He was a college player, a college assistant coach, an NBA assistant coach, an NBA personnel man, an NBA general manager, a writer for NBA.com and a broadcaster.

Greenberg, 55, always wanted to be a college head coach. He's been at Radford two years.

Radford lost in the first round to North Carolina, but that will not be how Greenberg remembers this season.

"I've had more than my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame," Greenberg said. "My assistants, Rick Hall, Ali Ton, Cedric Smith and Ross Condon are great guys to work with. We have fun.

"I've loved everything I've done in basketball, but my first passion was coaching. And my first goals, once I got into coaching, were to be a head coach at a Division I program and get to the NCAA tournament.

"It's been a long, strange trip to get here, but it's more than I ever could imagine."

Also receiving votes and earning honorable mention were Gregg Thondique (Virginia Union University), Gerald Lee (Old Dominion), David Gonzalvez (Richmond), Justin Short (Randolph-Macon), Michael Deloach (Norfolk State), Juwann James (James Madison) and John Vaughan (George Mason).

Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or .