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The Daily Wildcat

The Daily Wildcat

 

McConnell named point guard of the year finalist

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Tyler Baker
Tyler Baker/The Daily Wildcat

Arizona men’s basketball point guard T.J. McConnell joined the list of Wildcats that are being considered for major awards on Friday.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced McConnell is a finalist for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award presented by the College of Holy Cross for the second year in a row.

The Pac-12 conference had the most finalists with four: McConnell, California’s Tyrone Wallace, Utah’s Delon Wright and Washington’s Nigel Williams-Goss.

McConnell leads the Pac-12 in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.02) and is second in the conference in assists per game (6.0). He is the leading active Pac-12 player with 359 assists, even though this is just his second year in the league.

McConnell averages 9.8 points per game, 12.1 in conference play. The senior is third in the Pac-12 in field goal percentage in conference games (.571).

He is third in the Pac-12 and 16th in the country in steals, with 2.2 per game. He has 57 steals this year, which is 10 away from tying Kenny Lofton and Reggie Geary for ninth in UA history.

McConnell joins forward Stanley Johnson and forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson as finalists for national awards.

Johnson is a candidate for the 2015 Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award, on the Naismith Trophy Midseason Top 30 and in the John R. Wooden Award Late Season Top 20.

Hollis-Jefferson is a candidate for the 2015 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award.

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Follow James Kelley on Twitter.

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