Angelou: The ebony fighter awakens, dabbled with the dewy beads of morn.

Moe: Maya Angelou is black?

Angelou: It is a mach-5 child, forever bound to suckle from the shriveled breast of congress.

Lenny: Oh, Maya, you’re a national treasure!

– The Simpsons, “Insane Clown Poppy“

People don’t like Tyler Zeller.

• Sports gabber Bomani Jones: “i’d rather have an average player go hard than a talent play soft. of course, i’m talking about tyler zeller.”
• Inside Carolina poster myboyroy: “If I’m 7 ft when I get close to the hoop the ball is getting flushed. None of this weak tot action layup crap. FLUSH IT!”
• UNC men’s basketball coach Roy Williams: “Z went up soft one time.”

Such is the consensus about Z: a mammoth talent (literally, figuratively) doomed to mediocrity thanks to a lack of Hansbrough Hardness Points.

The consensus is wrong.

Here is a list of players in the ACC scoring more, per 40 minutes of playing time, than Tyler Zeller through Feb. 20 (i.e. before Virginia Tech/Duke):

Including the BC game, Zeller sits at 23.7 points per 40 minutes. Malcolm Delaney is second, at 23.6. Greivis Vasquez is third, at 22.9. Nobody else is above 22 (though, for what it’s worth, Deon Thompson is fourth at 21.5).

Zeller’s also efficient: His offensive efficiency rating, at 116.4, is Carolina’s best. He’s not getting those results by being picky about shots, either. Zeller uses 23.1 percent of possessions when he’s on the floor — second among Carolina’s players to Deon, and on the high end of the normal range for rotation regulars. The only reason he isn’t scoring 15 points a game is because his minutes have been limited by a lottery pick and a senior starter.

Those aren’t All-America numbers, but they’re very good; they’re pretty close, for example, to Danny Green‘s junior-year numbers (116.3 ORtg, 22.6 %Poss), posted when Green was the best sixth man in the ACC and building toward an all-ACC senior year/getting himself a pretty sweet gig as Ginger to LeBron’s Fred. They also compare favorably to all-ACC big men; Al-Farouq Aminu isn’t a fair comparable because Aminu is asked to carry a huge percentage of Wake’s offense, but Zeller’s numbers look more than respectable when you put them next to those of Trevor Booker or Tracy Smith or Solomon Alabi.

(Side note: You can appreciate here why DeMarcus Cousins is getting lots of play as a potential SEC Player of the Year candidate and a top-5 pick in the draft. His ORtg is the exact same as Z’s, but Cousins uses an absurd 33.5 percent of Kentucky’s possessions.)

Yes, Zeller missed the bulk of the ACC schedule, which means he got many of his minutes this season against smaller teams that couldn’t handle his 7-foot frame. It’s worth pointing out, though, that Z was the team’s top scorer per 40 minutes before he got hurt. He also scored 16 points in 15 minutes against Texas’ front line, back when that meant something. He’s remarkably swift for a big, adding a major weapon to UNC’s secondary break. He’s comfortable away from the basket, allowing Thompson (and, pre-injury, Davis) to work underneath. He hits free throws. His jump hook is an effective weapon; Zeller hits the shot more than half the time.

In short, whatever his faults as a basketball player, Tyler Zeller can score.

None of this means the kid is perfect. For starters, he could stand to rebound a lot more: Zeller rebounds just 17.1 percent of opponents’ misses, a figure that would rank him 16th in the ACC if he were eligible (according to Pomeroy). Part of the trouble, no doubt, is that Ed Davis is an elite rebounder; Ed ranks in the top 50 nationally in DR%, leaving teammates fighting over his scraps. (Or, at least, he was doing that until he got hurt. Sigh.) Davis’ prolific ball-snatching, though, doesn’t excuse Zeller. 17.1 percent isn’t that high for a guy who’s the tallest dude on the team, even if he does play facing the basket a lot.

So no, it doesn’t take a basketball savant to see that Zeller’s often tentative with the ball, that he doesn’t like to bang underneath, that he’s more comfortable taking a charge than drawing contact on a shot (an aggravatingly Duke-like trait). There is something to be said for that Jordanian killer instinct, the motivation to destroy, and I’m sure Roy wishes that Z had more of it.

If that is the argument, then — if we’re frustrated that Zeller could be better, an All-American rather than simply a good player, a Montross bleeding at the foul line and spitting venom instead of a goofy-looking kid who makes Greg Paulus look normal — so be it. If you’re gonna do that, though, at least acknowledge what the kid brings to the table: One year’s worth of games into his playing career, he is one of the best scoring big men in the ACC, fontanelle-soft or not. His presence in the lineup would have gone a long way toward solving UNC’s offensive ineptitude in its most offensively inept games. He is a candidate for a breakout year in 2010-11 even if he never develops the grit that fans want out of him.

It’s OK to stop pretending like the dude’s Serge Zwikker. Heck — he’s a national treasure.