Gonzaga and Baylor spent most of the season maintaining the top two spots in the Top 25.
It makes sense that he would hold a lot of seats in The Associated Press All-America.
Bulldogs Corey Kispert and Bears Jared Butler led the first team on the national panel of 63 members of the media who vote each week in the AP Top 25 poll on Tuesday.. They were joined by unanimous selection Luka Garza of Iowa, a two-time selection, along with Ayo Dosunmu of Illinois and Cade Cunningham of Oklahoma.
But Kispert and Butler had a lot of company.
The Bulldogs also brought big man Drew Timme and freshman Jalen Suggs to the second team, while Joel Ayayi was an honorable choice. The Bears had Davion Mitchell in the third team and MaCio Teague as an honorable mention.
“Thinking of me as a freshman coming to Baylor and I don’t know what I’m doing, without waiting for how good I’ll be or how good I’ll be – it means a lot of circle,” said Butler, the Big 12 player. of the year and a third American team last season.
It is the first time Baylor has won No. 1 in the NCAA tournament, had a first-team All-American team.
“These awards are just team awards,” said Butler, who retired from the NBA draft to return for his junior year. “I would not be here without my colleagues playing with me and giving me confidence. It was nice. ”
Kispert also retired from the draft and led his team to No. 1 in the overall standings, along with helping the Bulldogs finish a perfect regular season. He joined Dan Dickau, Adam Morrison and Kelly Olynyk as All-Americans in the Gonzaga first team.
“She is the symbol of a college athlete. He is a poster child for the term student-athlete, great student, great ambassador for the program, our school and university athletics in general “, said Gonzaga’s coach, Mark Few. “It was all because of his work, the time he put in and his physical and mental development. He’s just an incredible guy. ”
So is Garza, the great genius of Iowa, which won two votes as a unanimous election last season. In fact, he was so dominant that the school’s career leader will withdraw his T-shirt no. 55 at the end of the season.
“He is the center of every defense every time we speak. The more bands he has on him, the harder it is for him, “said Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery.” So I was very impressed with his continued relentlessness and improvement. happen”.
Like Hawkeyes, Fighting Illini never had a first team choice until Dosunmu came. The two-time All-Big Ten guard led them to the conference tournament title last weekend and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Joining these veterans – seniors Garza and Kispert, juniors Butler and Dosunmu – is Cunningham, the favorite to be named first overall in the NBA draft. The quiet freshman striker helped him learn Baylor’s upset in the Big 12 tournament and will lead the fourth-ranked Cowboys to the NCAA tournament.
“Oklahoma State, last year wasn’t the year they were proud of,” Cunningham said, “but I know there are a lot of guys who wanted to win and would do whatever it took to win. So, having a group of guys like that, with the coach we have and the staff we have, that’s what I want to surround myself with ”.
SECOND TEAM
While the first team was full of upper class members, the second team belonged to the young college basketball players.
They were Suggs, the freshman who led Gonzaga to high-profile wins over Kansas and Iowa at the start of the season and Timme, the second student to move from the key reserve to the crucial starter for the West Coast Conference champions.
They were joined by a trio of post-players: Kofi Cockburn from Illinois, Hunter Dickinson from Michigan and Evan Mobley from USC.
“Very proud of Evan, of his evolution,” Trojan coach Andy Enfield. “He has really improved as a player throughout the season and we will need him to play at a high level starting this weekend.”
TEAM THREE
Baylor’s Mitchell was joined on the third team by Quentin Grimes, the Houston goalie; Herb Jones of Alabama; Cameron Krutwig of dear Loyola Chicago, middle-high; and Chris Duarte of Oregon.
Like the first American and the second All-American team, their teams will play in the NCAA tournament this week.
“You never want to take the win for granted,” said Krutwig, a member of the Ramblers team that reached the Final Four in 2018. “I’ve put in a lot of work. But I was standing there saying, “There’s still a lot to do.”
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AP Basketball writer John Marshall and AP Sports writers Michael Marot and Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.
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More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/College-basketball and http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25