SPOKANE, Wash. — To no one’s surprise, Gonzaga dominated the WCC All-Conference awards when they were announced on Tuesday. Corey Kispert was named Player of the Year, Jalen Suggs was named Newcomer of the Year, Andrew Nembhard was named Sixth Man of the Year, and Mark Few was named Coach of the Year.
Kispert averaged 19.5 points per game his senior season, leading the conference. He was also second in field goal percentage, hitting 55.6% of his shots, and first in three-point percentage at 46.3%. Kispert was awarded the WCC’s Player of the Week award three times this season, including this week’s award.
Kispert was named a finalist for the Julius Erving Award last week, which is given to the best small forward in college basketball every year. He seems to be a lock for the award after being a finalist last year as well.
Suggs, a surefire NBA lottery pick, stood head and shoulders above all of the other newbies in the conference this season. He was first in steals at two per contest, fourth in field goal percentage at 50.5%, and fourth in assists at 4.55 per contest. Overall, Suggs won the conference’s Freshman of the Week award 10 times. Adding in Gonzaga’s Covid pause, Suggs won the award 10 out of a possible 13 times this season.
Suggs was named a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award last week, which is given to the best point guard in college basketball.
Nembhard played the majority of the season off the bench before moving into the starting lineup permanently on Feb. 8. He owns the conference's top assist to turnover ratio at 3.39 and won the conference's Player of the Week award once at the beginning of the season. Nembhard was originally supposed to sit out this season for the Zags after transferring from Florida.
Few was named the Coach of Year after leading his program to an undefeated regular season. Gonzaga became the 29th team to ever achieve that mark. This is Mark Few’s 14th time being named the conference’s coach of the year in 22 seasons at the helm.
Few was one of 15 coaches named to the Naismith Men’s Coach of the Year Late Season Watch List two weeks ago. That list will be narrowed down to four finalists in March.
The only individual award not won by someone within Gonzaga's program was the Defensive Player of the Year award. That went to BYU's Matt Haarms.
Kispert, Suggs, Drew Timme, and Joel Ayayi were all named first team All-WCC. Nembhard snagged a spot on the conference's second team. Suggs and Oumar Ballo were also named to the All-WCC Freshman Team.
To see a full rundown of the conference's awards click here.
