From Jason Erickson, WAC Director of Media Relations:
Hawai‘i’s Vander Joaquim has been named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for the week of Jan. 9-15. The honor marks the second career WAC Player of the Week award and second this season for Joaquim.
Joaquim, a junior forward from Luanda, Angola (College of Eastern Utah), led Hawai‘i to a 1-1 record last week with a 74-68 overtime win at Fresno State and a 77-74 setback at Nevada. Joaquim scored a season-high 23 points, while adding 16 rebounds and three blocks for his fifth double-double of the season in the overtime win at Fresno State. Joaquim helped UH to the win after scoring his team’s final two baskets of regulation, including the game-tying field goal with five seconds remaining. He then scored 10 of UH’s 16 points in overtime to secure the victory. Joaquim recorded his third-straight 20 point game with 23 points in a near-upset at Nevada. He also added seven rebounds and a career-high seven blocks. The seven blocks were one short of the UH school record.
On the week, Joaquim averaged 22.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 5.0 blocks per game. He shot 73.9.4 percent (13-of-23) from the field and 61.1 percent (11-of-18) from the free throw line.
Other nominees included:
* Fresno State sophomore guard Kevin Olekaibe
* Idaho senior guard Deremy Geiger
* Nevada sophomore guard Deonte Burton
* New Mexico State senior forward Wendell McKines
* Utah State senior guard Brockeith Pane
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3 comments:
How crazy is it that Wendell McKines hasn't won even one of these yet? 18.3/10.7 on the season, and 20.4/12 over the last month. Always seems to be some sort of unique performance, (like Oleikabe's big game vs ASU, or Joaquim's 7 blocks) That trumps his consistency.
Relax. It's called WAC player of the week. He's a shoe-in for player of the year.
Did you even watch Vander Joaquim this season? Clearly the most dominant post player in the WAC hands down.
I've only seen a few minutes of VJ this year- I do admire his game.
My point wasn't that McKines got jobbed in this week or any other, just that it is interesting that he has been consistently the second best player in the league for any given week with a rotating cast at first.
POY is essentially a two horse race at this point- if Burton continues his current rate of play and the Pack end up in first, it would be hard to ignore him. The same could be said for Wendell/NMSU.
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