The college basketball regular season is here, but the preseason recognition didn’t stop rolling in for the UConn men’s basketball team, which landed two players on the watch list for the Naismith Trophy Player of the Year award on Monday.
Both Alex Karaban and Solo Ball were among the 50 players recognized as potential candidates for the award, which is given annually to the best player in college basketball. UConn was one of 12 programs to have multiple players on the list.
It is the second national player of the year watch list recognition for Karaban, the Huskies’ senior captain looking for a third national championship ring. He was one of 20 players named to the NABC Player of the Year watch list last week in addition to his Preseason First Team All-Big East nod and another watch list recognition for the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award.
Karaban averaged a career-high 14.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 blocks in 35.8 minutes per game as a redshirt-junior last season.
Ball, also named Preseason First Team All-Big East and recognized on the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award Watch List, was recently named a Preseason Third Team All-American by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. He was the only UConn player to start in all 35 games last season and made the fourth-most 3-pointers in a single-season with 99 coming at a 41.4% clip.
Seeing his minutes rise from 11.5 to 31.7 as a sophomore, Ball averaged 14.4 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists for the Huskies last season.
The Big East had six representatives on the watch list for the Naismith Trophy, including three players from St. John’s in Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins and Ian Jackson, as well as Creighton’s Josh Dix.
