Arizona didn’t just dominate its league on the court this season, it also cleaned up in the awards category.
Tommy Lloyd has been named Big 12 Coach of the Year, his second Coach of the Year award in five seasons, while Jaden Bradley is the conference’s Player of the Year and Tobe Awaka is the Sixth Man of the Year.
Arizona landed three players on the Big 12’s 10-man First Team in Bradley, Brayden Burries and Motiejus Krivas, while Koa Peat was a Third Team selection and Awaka an Honorable Mention.
Bradley and Krivas made the All-Defensive Team while Burries and Peat landed on the All-Freshman Team. Burries was a unanimous choice for the All-Freshman squad.
Lloyd, whose 141 wins are the most by a Division I coach in his first five seasons, piloted the UA to a school-record 29 victories including a 16-2 mark in the Big 12, winning the league by two games. Lloyd also won Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2021-22.
Bradley, a senior guard who on Monday was also named a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award given to college basketball’s top point guard, averaged 13.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists this season. He becomes the 12th UA player to win a conference Player of the Year award, first since Caleb Love got the final Pac-12 POY honor in 2022-23, and is now eligible for the Ring of Honor.
Awaka, a senior forward, averaged 9.6 points and 9.5 rebounds despite coming off the bench in 28 of 31 games. He posted six double-doubles and leads the nation in offensive rebounding percentage (20.6).
He is the third Wildcat in the last six seasons to win a conference Sixth Man of the Year award, following Jordan Brown in 2020-21 and Pelle Larsson in 2021-22.
Bradley, Burries and Krivas give Arizona its most First Team all-conference selections since 2021-22, while the five overall honorees are the most for the program landing five on the all-Border Conference team in 1945-46.
Burries led the UA in scoring (16 points per game) and 3-pointers (50) and tied with Bradley in steals (50), dropping a career-high 31 in the regular season finale at Colorado. Krivas, who lost out to Kansas’ Flory Bidunga for Defensive Player of the Year, averaged 10.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocks and led the Big 12 in defensive rating (92.2).
Peat, who had the second-best debut by a UA freshman when he scored 30 against defending national champion Florida in November, averaged 13.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists.
BYU’s AJ Dybantsa won Big 12 Freshman of the Year, while Kansas’ Melvin Council won Newcomer of the Year, Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson won Most Improved Player and Iowa State’s Tamin Lipsey won Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
