Big East honors four UConn players

Newton and Spencer make the first team

Big East coaches rewarded UConn for its historic regular season on Sunday.

They voted Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer to the All-Big East first team, made Donovan Clingan an honorable mention and put Stephon Castle on the all-freshman team.

Newton, a graduate guard, was one of four unanimous selections along with Providence's Devin Carter, Creighton's Baylor Scheierman and Marquette's Tyler Kolek. Seton Hall's Kadary Richmond rounded out the team.

The conference selections were announced Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after UConn (28-3, 18-2) set the Big East regular season record for wins by winning at Providence Saturday night. The Huskies also have the program's best regular season victory mark.

It's the first All-Big East honor for Newton, who didn't appear on any preseason conference teams, and Spencer, a graduate transfer. Newton leads the second-ranked Huskies in points (15.0), rebounds (7.1) and assists (5.8) while Spencer averages 14.7 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists.

This could be just the first league award for Newton, who's considered a strong contender for the Big East player of the year.

Newton isn't concerned about individual accolades.

“We want team awards, like Big East championships,” Newton said on Saturday night after the win at Providence. “We don't have the awards that we want yet. We want championships. We don't really care about personal awards. … It would be cool for everybody to get their awards that they deserve, but we're looking forward to the team awards and the championships.”

It is the second straight season that UConn had two players on the All-Big East team. Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins achieved that accomplishment in 2022-23.

Clingan, a sophomore, was a preseason second team pick. Redshirt sophomore Alex Karaban, a preseason honorable mention, didn't make