Arizona's Deandre Ayton sweeps Pac-12 Player, Freshman of Year honors
Arizona freshman forward Deandre Ayton is the third player in Pac-12 Conference history to earn Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year honors in the same season.
Ayton, a 7-foot-1 forward from the Bahamas, joins UCLA forward Kevin Love (2008) and California forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim (1996) as the only dual winners in conference history. He leads the Pac-12 in rebounding with 11.4 per game and is second in scoring with 19.9 points per game. He ranks third in the Pac-12 in blocked shots (1.9 per game) and fifth in field-goal percentage (61.6).
Ayton is joined on the all-conference first team by teammate Allonzo Trier and Arizona State’s Tra Holder. Trier is a junior guard; Holder is a senior guard.
The rest of the team features senior guard Justin Bibbins from Utah, junior forward Noah Dickerson from Washington, junior guard Aaron Holiday from UCLA, senior guard Jordan McLaughlin and junior forward Chimezie Metu from USC, sophomore forward Tres Tinkle from Oregon State and junior forward Reid Travis from Stanford.
Washington junior forward Matisse Thubulle was named Defensive Players of the Year; Washington’s Mike Hopkins is Coach of the Year; Washington State junior forward Robert Franks is Most Improved Player; ASU freshman Remy Martin and Colorado’s Dominique Collier share Sixth Man of the Year honors; and Stanford’s Dorian Pickens, a senior from Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, is the Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Hopkins, in his first year as Washington’s coach, won coach of the year honors by guiding the Huskies to a 20-11 record -- an 11-win improvement over last season and the program’s first 20-win season since 2011-12.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8zI3Uubjus
Named to the all-conference second team were Arizona senior center Dusan Ristic, UCLA senior center Thomas Welsh, Utah senior forward David Collette, Colorado senior guard George King and Oregon sophomore guard Payton Pritchard.
The all-freshman team is Ayton and four guards -- Daejon Davis of Stanford, Jaylen Nowell of Washington, Kris Wilkes of UCLA and McKinley Wright of Colorado.
The all-defensive team is Thybulle, Ayton, Holiday, McLaughlin and Oregon forward Kenny Wooten.
