Hart’s national awards haul keeps growing

The honors continue to pile up for Josh Hart.

The 6-5 senior guard added two more prestigious laurels Tuesday when he was named first-team All-America by the Associated Press and was one of five John R. Wooden Award AllAmericans invited to Los Angeles for ESPN’s College Basketball Awards Show April 7. He is a finalist for the Julius Erving Award, which will be presented that night.

Hart also is a finalist for the Naismith Trophy, which is awarded to the national Player of the Year. That award will be announced Sunday during a brunch at the Final Four in Scottsdale, Ariz. Frank Mason III of Kansas, UCLA’s Lonzo Ball and Caleb Swanigan of Purdue are also up for that award.

Hart has been named firstteam All-America by AP, Basketball Times, USA Today, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and The Sporting News. He is the first Wildcat honored by the AP since Scottie Reynolds in 2010 and is the third AP AllAmerican in the Jay Wright era. Randy Foye was a first-team AllAmerica in 2006.

Hart averaged 18.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game while leading the Wildcats to a 32-4 record, a fourth straight Big East regular-season title and a second Big East Tournament crown in the last three years. Hart was the Big East Player of the Year, Co-Defensive Player of the Year in the conference and was the outstanding player in the Big East Tournament.

He is the only player in Villanova history to score more than 1,900 career points (1,921), grab more than 800 rebounds (812), hand out more than 250 assists (266) and have more than 150 steals (161).