Jaylon Tyson First Cal Player in 7 Years to Be Named First-Team All-Pac-12

Arizona's Caleb Love is player of the year. Kyle Smith is coach of the year. Cal's Fardaws Aimaq did not even receive honorable mention

Jaylon Tyson became the first Cal basketball player in seven years to be a first-team All-Pac-12 selection when he was named to the 10-man first-team, all-conference squad on Tuesday.

The last Cal player to be a first-team, all-conference choice was Ivan Rabb, who was selected to the 10-man first team in 2017.

Tyson, a transfer from Texas Tech, is third in the Pac-12 in scoring at 19.6 points per game and eighth in rebounding at 6.8 per contest. He also was primary ball-handler and playmaker for a Cal team that was picked to finish 11th but wound tied for sixth with a 9-11 conference mark. Tyson has one more year of college eligibility, but he is considering entering the NBA draft this year.

Arizona’s Caleb Love was named the Pac-12 player of the year, Washington State’s Kyle Smith was selected as coach of the year, Washington State’s Myles Rice is the freshman of the year, UCLA Adem Bona was named defensive player of the year, Washington’s Koren Johnson was named sixth man of the year, and Stanford’s Maxime Raynaud was chosen as the most improved player.

Regular-season champ Arizona and second-place Washington State were the only teams to have two players named to the all-conference team, while one player from UCLA, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Cal were chosen.

Oregon, Colorado, USC, Arizona and Stanford each had one player named to the five-man second team.

Somewhat surprising is that Cal center Fardaws Aimaq did not even receive honorable mention. He leads the conference and is fifth nationally in rebounding at 11.0 boards per game, and he is 14th in the conference in scoring at 14.7 points per contest. Aimaq also transferred from Texas Tech and will wind up his college career in the Pac-12 tournament. Cal faces Stanford in the opening round on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Las Vegas.

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Cover photo of Jaylon Tyson by Ron Chenoy, USA TODAY Sports

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