Azuolas Tubelis, Oumar Ballo named All-Pac-12, but UCLA wins most major postseason awards

While the league’s 12 coaches voted Tubelis and Oumar Ballo on their 10-player first-team All-Pac-12 squad — and gave Ballo the Most Improved Player award — the Wildcats were passed over on several other occasions.

Coaches voted UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez the league’s Player of the Year over Tubelis; didn’t put Kylan Boswell on the All-Freshman Team; didn’t put Courtney Ramey on the All-Defensive team; and didn’t vote point guard Kerr Kriisa to their first-team, second-team or honorable-mention all-conference units.

Coaches also gave UCLA the majority of the major awards: Mick Cronin was named Coach of the Year, Adem Bona was Freshman of the Year and Jaylen Clark was Defensive Player of the Year. Only Ballo as Most Improved and USC’s Reese Dixon-Waters, as Sixth Man of the Year, broke the Bruins’ hold on the major awards.

Also Tuesday, based on voting by eight media members who regularly cover the league, the Associated Press named Jaquez POY, Cronin COY and Washington’s Keion Brooks the Newcomer of the Year while putting Tubelis on its five-player first team and Ballo on its second team.

When made available for comment after practice Tuesday, UA coach Tommy Lloyd expressed support for Kriisa as he has all season, saying “maybe some other guys have better numbers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're more valuable to their team. And he’s a winner; he’s my guy.”

But overall, neither Lloyd nor Tubelis was complaining about the Pac-12 awards.

“I know UCLA won a bunch of them, and they should have,” Lloyd said. “They’ve had an amazing year.”

Similarly, Tubelis didn’t express a problem with Jaquez's award, even though Tubelis became the first player to lead the conference in both scoring (19.9) and rebounding (9.2) since 2005-06.

“I think he deserved it,” Tubelis said. “The coaches think that way.”

Tubelis said it was “pretty cool” to lead the conference in scoring and rebounding, something nobody had done since Cal’s Leon Powe did it 17 years ago, though it was not a goal of his.

Still, Jaquez beat Tubelis out after ranking in the league's top five in scoring (17.5) and rebounding (8.0). Jaquez also is considered a better defender than Tubelis and led the Bruins to a conference championship by four games — a factor Lloyd said should figure into individual postseason awards.

"I think our players would agree," Lloyd said on his weekly radio show Monday evening. "I mean, UCLA won the league by four games or something. Last year we had that same scenario where we did the same thing and we got all the awards. This year, I think they did.

"So congrats to them. They've had an incredible season. I think at the end of the day, it's always about the team, and individuals that deserve to be honored will be honored."

Last season, Arizona (18-2) won the Pac-12 title by three games over UCLA (15-5) and nearly swept the major awards: Lloyd was named COY, Bennedict Mathurin was POY, Christian Koloko was Defensive POY and Most Improved while Pelle Larsson was Sixth Man of the Year, an award he was not eligible for this season because he started one too many games. The only major award UA did not get last season was Freshman of the Year, an award that went to Stanford's Harrison Ingram.

This season, UCLA finished the conference season at 18-2, while the Wildcats and USC tied for second at 14-6. Arizona earned the Pac-12 Tournament's No. 2 seed, however, because of its series sweep over the Trojans and will begin play this week on Thursday at 7 p.m. against the winner of a first-round game Wednesday between seventh-seeded Utah (10-10) and 10th seeded Stanford (7-13).

Both the Utes and Cardinal defeated Arizona earlier this season, so maybe playing them in a one-and-done environment now was enough motivation for the Wildcats even before all the postseason awards came out Tuesday.

At least Lloyd is hoping so.

“That's on them,” Lloyd said when asked if the awards would add incentive for his players. “We don't talk about that stuff. If you need more motivation this time of year, you’ve probably got to look in the mirror.

"It’s a single-elimination tournament. When you advance, you lose, you go home. I don't know what motivates individuals more than that.”