Hawkins, Sanogo selected to All-Big East as first-team picks
Karaban and Clingan make all-rookie team
UConn's inside-outside duo of sophomore Jordan Hawkins and junior Adama Sanogo were rewarded for their strong play this season, earning All-Big East first team honors.
Teammates Donovan Clingan and Alex Karaban were selected to the All-Big East freshman team.
The league announced its first and second team and honorable mention selections on Sunday, as voted on by the 11 coaches, as well as the all-freshman team.
Sanogo, the league's preseason player of the year, leads the Huskies in scoring and rebounding at 16.9 points and 7.2 rebounds while starting all 31 games. He's the lone repeat selection to the first team and only the seventh Husky to receive that honor twice in his career.
An All-Big East freshman team pick last season, Hawkins emerged as one of the best players after not making any of the league's preseason teams. He's averaging 16.4 points and 3.9 rebounds while leading the team with 84 3-pointers.
Hawkins finished as the top scorer in league games at 17.3 points, joining Chris Smith (1991-92), Donyell Marshall (1993-94) and Richard Hamilton (1998-99) as the only Huskies to accomplish that feat.
It's the second straight year and only fourth time in program history that Huskies placed two players on the first team. R.J. Cole and Sanogo were honored last season, Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004 and Jeff Adrien and A.J. Price in 2008.
Other first team picks included Creighton's Ryan Kalkbrenner, Marquette's Tyler Kolek, Providence's Bryce Hopkins and Xavier's Souley Boum. Kolek and Hopkins were the only unanimous selections.
UConn and Villanova both placed two players in the all-freshman team.
Karaban started all but one game for the Huskies, averaging 9.7 points and 4.4 rebounds. He was named the Big East freshman of the week for a league-best sixth time on Sunday.
Clingan came off the bench, averaging 7.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks.
The 14th-ranked Huskies (24-7, 137) won eight of their last nine regular season games and posted the program's most overall wins in coach Dan Hurley's five seasons in Storrs.
A No. 4 seed, they'll face No. 5 Providence at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in the Big East tournament quarterfi
nals.
The Big East will announce individual award winners this week before the start of the league tournament on Wednesday. Top defensive player, most improved, sixth man award and sportsmanship award will be released on Monday while coach, player and freshman of the year as well as scholar-athlete will be named on Wednesday.
Karaban is one of the leading candidates for the Big East freshman of the year along with Villanova's Cam Whitmore. Both players were unanimous selections to the all-freshman team.
In Saturday's 71-59 win at Villanova in the regular season finale, Karaban stated his case by finishing with 16 points, six rebounds, four assists and three blocks.
It's been his goal since the beginning of the season to win the league's stop freshman honor. Whitmore was the preseason pick.
“I knew he was the talk of the town for freshmen going into the season, so I wanted to prove myself this season that I could compete with him,” Karaban said Saturday. “He's such a talented player. That was an individual goal that I told the coaches before the season that I wanted to do.
“... It was definitely something in the back of my mind during the season and I just wanted to finish out the season strong.”
Hawkins, who raised his scoring average from 5.8 points to 16.4, is in the running for most improved player.
In other news, junior Andre Jackson made the weekly honor roll, averaging 10.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.0 assist and shooting 77.8 percent from the field.