Wall, Cats rake in awards (updated)

If you missed the Academy Awards last night, have no fear. The awards season has just begun for the UK men’s basketball team.

UK freshman guard John Wall has been named the Yahoo! Sports National Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year. Joining Wall on the Yahoo! Sports first-team All-America list is UK freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins. UK junior forward Patrick Patterson was named an honorable mention to the list.

Wall was also named Freshman of the Year by the Sporting News. Cousins joined Wall on Sporting News’ All-Freshman Team.

The electric 6-foot-4 guard from Raleigh, N.C., will likely be taking in postseason awards by the groves in the next few weeks.

Wall is one of the final six candidates up for the Bob Cousy award, given to the nation’s top point guard, the Naismith Trophy, given to college basketball’s player of the year, and the Wooden Award, given to the country’s top player, among other awards.

Wall leads the Cats (29-2, 14-2 Southeastern Conference) in scoring (16.8 points per game), assists (6.2 assists per game), steals (1.8 takeaways per game), minutes (34.7 minutes per game), and is third in rebounding (4 boards per game).

Perhaps the most impressive stat is his play in the clutch. Wall said after the Cats’ game at Georgia on March 3, that he may not be the best shooter, but he knows how to score in the clutch. The numbers don’t lie. In the last two minutes and overtime this season, Wall has scored 66 points in 70 minutes with just six giveaways. That’s 37.7 points per 40 minutes in crunch time.

Earlier this season, UK head coach John Calipari was named to the Yahoo! Sports All-Coaches first-team. Calipari, of course, has been the architect in transforming and building the Cats from an NIT team one year ago, to a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament one week from now.

Yahoo! Sports also named Wall, Cousins and Patterson first-team All-SEC performers. Wall was named by Yahoo! Sports as the conference Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year, and Calipari was named the conference Coach of the Year.

UPDATE:

The awards just keep on coming.

CBSSports.com has handed out their league honors as well today, and their is a strong UK flavor to their SEC awards.

Wall was named SEC Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year, and Calipari was named the SEC Coach of the Year.

Wall, Cousins and Patterson were all named first-team All-SEC selections.