Arizona’s Bennedict Mathurin makes Jerry West Award preseason watch list

The preseason accolades continue to pour in for Bennedict Mathurin.

Arizona’s sophomore wing is one of 20 players named to the preseason watch list for the Jerry West Award, given annually to college basketball’s top shooting guard. The award is presented by the Basketball Hall of Fame and is one of five for individual positions.

Mathurin, who last week was named a preseason all-conference pick by the Pac-12 media, is coming off a freshman year in which he averaged 10.8 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 47.1 percent overall and 41.8 percent from 3-point range. In the offseason he competed with Canada’s Olympics and U19 teams.

UCLA’s Johnny Juzang and Oregon’s De’Vion Harmon are the other Pac-12 representatives on the West watch list.

The Jerry West Award is the second of five awards to announce its preseason watch list. On Monday the Bob Cousy Award, given to the country’s top point guard, announced its initial 20-person list and it did not include UA sophomore Kerr Kriisa.

Kriisa, and UA assistant coach Rem Bakamus, appear to be using that snub as motivation: