Sanogo, Hawkins named First Team All-Big East
UConn men’s basketball junior Adama Sanogo and sophomore Jordan Hawkins were named First Team All-Big East Sunday.
Also Sunday, Alex Karaban and Donovan Clingan were named to the conference’s AllFreshman team. Karaban was a unanimous choice.
The teams are selected by the 11 head coaches, who are not allowed to vote for their own players.
Besides Sanogo and Hawkins, the All-Big East team consists of Tyler Kolek of Marquette, Bryce Hopkins of Providence, Ryan Kalkbrenner of Creighton and Souley Boum of Xavier. Kolek and Hopkins were unanimous picks.
The conference Player of the Year will be selected from that group and will be announced Wednesday.
Sanogo and guard R.J. Cole were First Team picks for UConn last year. This year marks the fourth time in UConn history that two Huskies were placed on the First Team. Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon were picked in 2004, and Jeff Adrien and A.J.
Price in 2008.
Sanogo also joins six others in UCoinn history to make the team twice: Corny Thompson (‘81,‘82), Donyell Marshall (’93, ’94), Ray Allen (’95. ’96), Richard Hamilton (’98, ’99), Emeka Okafor (’03, ’04), and Shabazz Napier (’13 Big East, ’14 American Athletic Conference).
UConn, which will be the
fourth seed in the Big East Tournament, is 24-7 overall and 13-7 in the league. Sanogo is averaging 16.9 points per game, which led all Big East scorers in overall games. In Big East games, Sanogo was fourth in scoring (16.2), fifth in rebounding (7.6), seventh in field goal percentage (.568) and 14th in free throw percentage (.763).
Hawkins led the Big East in scoring, averaging 17.3 points. He and Sanogo were the highestscoring duo in the league (34.0 ppg).
Hawkins is the fourth UConn player to lead the Big East in scoring, following Chris Smith (’91-‘92), Donyell Marshall (’93’94) and Richard Hamilton (’98’99).
Sanogo and Hawkins are the 25th and 26th Huskies all-time to be named First Team All-Big East. The program also had four First Team picks in the American Athletic Conference.
Karaban and Clingan are the 29th and 30th Huskies named to the Big East All-Freshman Team, along with four others named in the AAC. This is the seventh time UConn has placed two players on the All-Freshman team.
Joining the UConn freshmen on the All-Freshman team are Cam Whitmore of Villanova (unanimous), AJ Storr of St. John’s, Mark Armstrong of Villanova, and New Haven’s Desmond Claude of Xavier.
The Freshman of the Year will come from that group and will be announced Wednesday.
Karaban, who won Freshman of the Week honors six times this season, as he started 30 games and scored in double figures 18 times. He averaged 9.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, shot .471 overall, .397 from three-point range and .833 from the foul line.
Clingan, named Freshman of the Week twice, led the Huskies in field goal percentage (.657) and blocked shots (1.8), while averaging 7.3 points