Arizona dominates Pac-12 men’s basketball honors

They’re gonna need to do some remodeling at McKale Center to showcase all the hardware Arizona just picked up from the Pac-12 Conference.

The Wildcats nearly swept all the individual awards announced Tuesday, while four starters made the all-conference team and two landed on the all-defensive squad.

Bennedict Mathurin is the Pac-12 Player of the Year, the ninth in school history and first since Deandre Ayton in 2017-18, while Tommy Lloyd is the UA’s first Pac-12 Coach of the Year since Sean Miller won his third COY award in 2016-17.

Christian Koloko collected two individual awards, getting named the Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player, while Pelle Larsson is Sixth Man of the Year.

The only individual award Arizona did not claim was Freshman of the Year, which went to Stanford’s Harrison Ingram. Arizona has won that award 10 times, most recently by Zeke Nnaji in 2019-20.

Koloko is Arizona’s first DPOY in school history, and also first MIP, while Larsson is Arizona’s second consecutive Sixth Man winner, following Jordan Brown last season.

Koloko, Mathurin and Azuolas Tubelis were all Pac-12 all-conference First Team selections, while Dalen Terry was an honorable mention. Terry joined Koloko on the All-Defensive Team. Arizona is the first school to have three 1st-team picks since UCLA in 2016-17—the UA last did it in 2014-15—and it’s the first time it has had multiple All-Defensive selections since 2014-15. UCLA also had three First-Team picks this year.

Joining Arizona’s trio on the all-conference First Team are former Wildcat Terrell Brown Jr. (now at Washington), UCLA’s Tyger Campbell, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Johnny Juzang, USC’s Isaiah Mobley and Drew Peterson and Colorado’s Jabari Walker. The other All-Defensive honorees were UCLA’s Jaquez, Myles Johnson and Jaylen Clark.

Top-seeded Arizona (28-3) opens Pac-12 Tournament play Thursday at 1 p.m. MT in Las Vegas against the winner of Wednesday’s game between No. 8 ASU and No. 9 Stanford.