Huskies win top three Pac-12 postseason awards: Jaylen Nowell is player of the year

By Percy Allen The Seattle Times • March 12, 2019 6:00 pm
Washington’s Jaylen Nowell puts up a shot over Oregon State’s Kylor Kelley in the second half, giving the Huskies a 48-46 lead over the Beavers with 13:02 to play on Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle, Wash. (Dean Rutz/Seattle Times/TNS)
Washington’s Jaylen Nowell puts up a shot over Oregon State’s Kylor Kelley in the second half, giving the Huskies a 48-46 lead over the Beavers with 13:02 to play on Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle, Wash. (Dean Rutz/Seattle Times/TNS)

By Percy Allen

The Seattle Times

The Huskies dominated the Pac-12 men’s basketball postseason awards, winning three of the of six individual honors.

Sophomore guard Jaylen Nowell beat out teammate Matisse Thybulle for the league’s top prize and was named the conference player of the year.

For the second consecutive year, Thybulle was recognized as the defensive player of the year and Mike Hopkins received the coach of the year award.

It was a banner day for Washington (24-7), which cruised to a Pac-12 regular-season championship with a 15-3 record that was three games better than second-place Arizona State.

Nowell and Thybulle also were named first-team All-Pac-12 while senior forward Noah Dickerson nabbed honorable-mention honors from the conference coaches. Thybulle also was chosen to the league’s all-defensive team for a second time.

“Coming in I definitely wanted to make this city happy,” Nowell said. “Just to know that we did this as a unit is great.”

Nowell, who leads Washington in scoring (16.3 points per game) and assists (3.1), becomes the third Husky to win the conference player of the year award, joining Chris Welp (1986) and Brandon Roy (2006).

The 6-foot-4 guard registered double-digit scoring in 28 of his 31 games and led UW in scoring 14 times this season. Nowell shot 50.4 percent from the field — the second highest for a Pac-12 guard — 42.7 percent on three-pointers and 76.2 percent on free throws.

Nowell edged Thybulle and Oregon State’s Tres Tinkle for the honor while becoming the ninth underclassmen among the previous 45 recipients dating back to 1976. (UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon and Arizona’s Damon Stoudamire were co-winners in 1994-95.)

“We talked about it before, but as we (said) to each other whoever wins it, we’re happy for whoever,” Nowell said. “This is an individual award, but it’s the team. It wouldn’t have happened without any of those guys. Without David Crisp being the leader that he is. Without Matisse being the leader that he is.

“At the end of the day this is definitely a great award, but it wouldn’t have happened without the team.”

Thybulle is the only UW player to be named the league’s defensive player of the year and just the second player in conference history to collect the award in back-to-back years. Oregon State’s Gary Payton II won it in 2015 and ‘16.

Thybulle tied the conference’s single-season steals record of 110 that was set by California’s Jason Kidd in 1992-93. The 6-foot-5 senior guard is seven steals shy of eclipsing the Pac-12 career steals record of 321 held by Oregon State’s Gary Payton (1986-90). Thybulle has 315.

Thybulle, who leads the NCAA with 3.5 steals per game, also has 72 blocks this season.

“The blocks are fun because it’s like they never expect it even though they come into games knowing that’s what I’m trying to do,” Thybulle said. “That’s exciting, but steals — there’s nothing like it. Whether it’s me or who gets a fastbreak dunk or I get the steal and throwing it up to Jaylen or Dave, I don’t think there’s anything that can compare to that.”

Hopkins is the third person to win the conference’s coach of the year award in consecutive seasons. The others include: Oregon’s Dana Altman (2016 and ‘15), Stanford’s Mike Montgomery (1999 and ‘00) and Arizona’s Lute Olson (1993 and 94; 1988 and ‘89).

“It’s a great honor, humbling, but it takes everybody,” Hopkins said. “I’ve got an incredible staff. Those guys work hard everyday in getting our guys better and our guys went out played. I’m just very blessed and lucky.”

Hopkins joins UW’s Marv Harshman (1982 and ‘84) and Lorenzo Romar (2005, ‘09 and ‘12) to be named the conference’s coach of the year.

“My parents always taught me to surround yourself with great people,” Hopkins said. “The first guy I hired was Will Conroy who is the heart and soul of this school and means so much and is so connected. He’s a great young coach. Then it was Cameron Dollar who spent years back here. … And Dave Rice, just an incredible coach on the West Coast who I’ve known. (And) Jerry Hobbie, Kreigh Warkentien and Trevor Wade.

“You surround yourself with experience, value-aligned people who just want to develop and want to win and help these guys become great people, not only players. When you go to work everyday and enjoy who you work with it’s a blessing and I’m very fortunate.”

Per terms of his contract, Hopkins collects a $15,000 bonus for winning the coach of the year award.

Dickerson was a first-team All-Pac-12 performer last season as a junior when he averaged career highs in scoring (15.5) and rebounding (8.4). However, his production dipped this season to 12.9 and 7.2.

Washington State senior forward Robert Franks was chosen first team All-Pac-12 and C.J. Elleby, the former Cleveland High star, made the all-freshman team.

Arizona State guard Luguentz Dort won the Pac-12 freshman of the year award, Colorado forward Tyler Bey was the most improved player and Utah forward Donnie Tillman was the sixth man of the year.

UW and ASU collected seven postseason honors while Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and Utah each had three. Stanford, USC and Washington State had two and California was shut out.