Wildcats pull off near-sweep of Pac-12 men's basketball awards

Stanford’s Harrison Ingram, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, was the only non-Wildcat winner of the conference’s six major awards.

Meanwhile, UA forward Azuolas Tubelis joined Mathurin and Koloko on the 10-player all-conference first team, while guard Dalen Terry joined Koloko on the five-player all-defense team and earned honorable mention all-conference honors.

“I think it’s just the recognition we kind of deserve,” Koloko said. “Like Coach (Sean) Miller used to tell us, with team success comes individual accolades. I think that’s what we’re seeing right now.”

The 10-player all conference first team also included three players from UCLA (Johnny Juzang, Jaime Jaquez and Tyger Campbell) plus two from USC (Isaiah Mobley and Drew Peterson), along with Washington’s Terrell Brown and Colorado’s Jabari Walker.

The five-player all-defensive team also included three players from UCLA: Jaquez, Myles Johnson and Jaylen Clark.

In the race for Player of the Year, Mathurin’s closest rival might have been a former teammate: Brown transferred from Arizona to Washington last spring and wound up averaging 21.7 points a game for the Huskies to lead the conference in scoring.

Brown helped Washington win three of its last four games to finish in a three-way tie for fifth place, arguably doing as much to elevate his team as anyone in the conference.

“I certainly think Terrell should definitely be in the conversation because of what he did this season,” Pac-12 Networks analyst Matt Muehlebach, a former Wildcat standout, said before the awards were announced. “It’s been really impressive and at times, he’s really carrying that team.

“But it’s a short conversation. I’m not taking anything away from him whatsoever but I just think Mathurin’s success, combined with the team success, just makes it a shorter conversation.”

After the awards were announced Monday, UA coach Tommy Lloyd said Mathurin’s progression has been fun to watch.

“Benn’s had a dominant year,” Lloyd said. “I think if you kind of watch how the year went, he might have started slow those first couple games and then kind of really took off in December. Then in some of those early Pac-12 games, he kind of hit a patch where he struggled a little bit and teams were throwing different things at him. But he adjusted and he’s gotten better.

“He continues to get better and I’m hoping we can squeeze another jump out of him.”

Though Mathurin is a projected NBA lottery pick, UA associate head coach Jack Murphy said during Lloyd’s radio show on Monday that the star’s unselfishness has been a big key to the Wildcats’ success.

“When he’s fully bought in he’s been a catalyst for our success and you have to give him a ton of credit for doing,” Murphy said. “Not many 19-year-olds have the wherewithal, the maturity to see that and Benn did. And Benn came back to school for all the right reasons. I think it’s shown in his play, and it’s shown in our team success.”

Koloko emerged this season not only as a rim-protecting shot blocker but also as a versatile defender who could handle switching on to perimeter players. He stopped Oregon guard Will Richardson on the Ducks’ final possession of UA’s 84-81 win in McKale Center, shadowing him all the way from the 3-point line to the left of the basket, where Richardson turned the ball over as time expired.

“Christian should be the Defensive Player of the Year in the conference,” Murphy said Monday evening. “If he’s not, somebody stole something.”

Earning Most Improved honors also came as no surprise, considering Koloko’s emergence from a role player as a freshman to a part-time starter last season to a dominant defender and capable inside scorer as a junior this season.

“He’s come really far and I’m proud of him,” Lloyd said. “When we first talked about him staying here (last spring), I told him that I thought these things were possible and and that I love coaching and developing big guys.

“And I said now I need you to commit to working and sticking with the process. We’re going to work hard, you’re going to make progress, then you’re going to want to work harder. That’s the kind of cycle you want to get and he’s definitely he’s done that.”

Arizona nominated both Larsson and center Oumar Ballo for the conference’s Sixth Man award, but Larsson’s versatility and skills on both sides of the ball likely attracted the votes of coaches, who vote for all the conference’s major postseason awards while media vote for preseason and weekly honors.

“It’s (awarded) by the coaches, but I think he’s deserving,” Lloyd said of Larsson. “I think Oumar is deserving and I think Justin’s right there, all three of those guys. What a luxury for a team to have three guys that can be up for Sixth Man of the Year.”

Larsson is not only a reliable offensive player off the bench, averaging 7.1 points while shooting 47.0% overall and 35.5% from 3-point range, but he’s also Arizona’s most versatile defender. Larsson has often been assigned to guard many of the Pac-12’s smaller power forwards, matching up more effectively than the 6-11 Tubelis.

Larsson started off slowly this season after breaking his foot while playing with the Swedish national team in August but has improved as the season progressed. By the time Larsson hit all five shots he took and scored 14 points in UA’s 91-79 win at ASU on Feb. 7, Lloyd said he was hitting another level.

“Pelle is coming on,” Lloyd said after that game. “We had some talks with him and I think his next step, and he is starting to take it, is scoring double figures. If you fall into a couple of assists, great, but don’t try to get five assists and then only score four points. I want 10-12-15 points and then two, three assists.”

Though Larsson did not make the conference’s all-defensive team, Murphy said Larsson and Terry have proven top defenders for the Wildcats, who hold opponents to just 41.6% shooting from two-point range (the second best defensive two-point percentage nationally).

Meanwhile, Lloyd took a team that was picked to finish fourth in the Pac-12 and turned it into one that won the league title by three games. He did it by taking a core of talented sophomores left behind by former coach Sean Miller and then meshing in three key transfers to come off the bench: Larsson (Utah), Ballo (Gonzaga) and guard Justin Kier (Georgia), and making them better individually and collectively.

“They’re very talented, and that talent has developed,” Muehlebach said. “It feels like every guy in that team is better today than he was on November 1.”