Cal forward Jaylen Brown, who leads the Golden Bears in scoring with 15.3 points per game, has been named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in a vote of the conference’s coaches.
Brown, the only freshman chosen to the All-Pac-12 First Team announced earlier Monday, becomes the eighth Bear to be selected Freshman of the Year, joining Dave Butler (1983), Leonard Taylor (1985), Jason Kidd (1993), Tremaine Fowlkes (1995), Shareef Abdur-Rahim (1996), Leon Powe (2004) and Allen Crabbe (2011).
“I appreciate my teammates for allowing me to be in this position,” Brown said. “It’s a tremendous award, but it comes from team accolades. I just want to continue to win and strive for the best, and hopefully, that leads us to a good place.”
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A 6'7'' forward from Atlanta, Georgia, Brown is contributing 5.6 rebounds per game and nearly two assists per game in addition to his scoring. He has started every game this season, owns a high of 27 points versus both Richmond and Utah, and has four double-doubles.
“This is a great honor and I’m really happy for Jaylen,” head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “He’s put in a lot of hard work from start to finish and has made tremendous strides during the year, especially the little things. He’s become more efficient offensively, he’s making good decisions with the ball, and he has really improved on defense. His growth as a basketball player has been fun to watch.”
One of five finalists for the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Award, Brown’s 15.3 points per game scoring average is third all-time among Cal freshmen behind only Abdur-Rahim (21.1 PPG in 1995-96) and Ryan Anderson (16.3 PPG in 2006-07). Brown has reached double figures in 26 of 31 games and has paced the Bears in scoring eight times, most recently in Cal’s home finale against USC when he tallied 20 points. He is the first Cal freshman to be named first-team all-conference since Leon Powe in 2003-04.
Stanford’s Rosco Allen was also selected to the All-Pac-12 First Team, the conference announced Monday.
Allen completed the regular season fifth in the conference in scoring during league action at 16.8 points per game. He was ninth in scoring overall with a team-leading 15.7 points per game. Allen also ranked seventh in the Pac-12 in three-point field goals (1.9 per game) during the regular season. The forward recorded a three-pointer in 23 consecutive games before having his streak come to an end at Arizona on March 5.
ALL-PAC-12 FIRST TEAM
Rosco Allen
Ryan Anderson
Andrew Andrews
Dillon Brooks
Jaylen Brown
Elgin Cook
Julian Jacobs
Gary Payton II
Jakob Poeltl
Josh Scott
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