Four Aggies named to all-BWC teams
For the second straight year, Utah State had two players named to the Big West Conference all-first team, while one player was named to the second-team and one player was named honorable mention.
Prior to last season, Utah State never had two first-team all-league players.
USU, which finished in second-place in the Big West Conference with a 13-3 league mark and owns a 24-5 overall record heading into the conference tournament, had seniors Shawn Daniels and Bernard Rock named first-team, while junior Tony Brown was named second-team and senior Curtis Bobb was named honorable mention.
Daniels, a 6-6 senior from Bakersfield, Calif., led the Big West Conference in blocks (1.69), and was second in field-goal percentage (.605), third in rebounds (6.7), and 12th in scoring (12.1). He became only the fifth Aggie to earn back-to-back first-team all-Big West Conference honors. The other four Aggies to accomplish the feat were Marcus Saxon (1997, 1998); Eric Franson (1995, 1996); Greg Grant (1985, 1986); and Dean Hunger (1979, 1980).
Rock, a 5-10 senior from New York, N.Y., led the Big West Conference in assists (4.31), and was fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.56), and eighth in steals (1.24). He is averaging 10.4 points per game and is third in the league in free-throw percentage at 81.3 percent.
Brown, a 6-3 junior for Hyrum, Utah, is second in the Big West Conference in three-point field-goal percentage (43.5), leads the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.18), and is fourth in assists (3.38). Brown is
USU’s leading scorer thus far this year at 12.2 points per game which ranks 11th in the conference. He was an honorable mention all-league player as a sophomore and was named to the league’s all-freshmen team in 1998.
Bobb, a 6-5 senior from Aurora, Colo., ranks sixth in the conference in three-point field-goal percentage (.395) and is 12th in the league in rebounding (4.9). He is averaging 10.3 points per game on the season and is the team’s second leading rebounder.
Utah State was the only team in the conference to have four players named to either the first-team, second-team, or honorable mention team. USU and Long Beach State each had two players named first-team, while UC Santa Barbara had two second-team players, and Pacific had three honorable mention selections.
UC Irvine’s Jerry Green was named the Player of the Year after leading the league in scoring (19.0), while Pat Douglass was named the Coach of the Year after guiding the Anteaters to a league-best 15-1 record.