Cal Basketball: Matt Bradley Named to All-Pac-12 Second Team

Oregon guard Payton Prithard earns Pac-12 player of the year

It was hoped that Cal sophomore Matt Bradley (left in the video) would be named to the 10-man all-Pac-12 first team after his outstanding season, but he was relegated to the second-team all-conference squad announced by the Pac-12 on Monday.

No team had more than one player named to the all-Pac-12 first team, and Cal and Utah were the only teams not to have player named to the first team.

As expected, Payton Pritchard of Oregon was named conference player of the year, but the other awards were somewhat up in the air.

Cal's Mark Fox figured to be in the running for coach of the year after leading a  Cal team picked to finish last in the conference to a 7-11 Pac-12 record. However, the coach of the year honor went to UCLA's Mick Cronin, who took a team that was struggling at midseason to a second-place finish. The Bruins won seven straight games late in the season, and would have shared the conference championship if it had won its final game against USC. The Trojans won that game by two points on a three-pointer by Jonah Mathews with one seond left.

The Pac-12 freshman of the year is Zeke Nnaji of Arizona. 

The defensive player of the year is Tyler Bey of Utah.

The most improved player is Chis Smith of UCLA. 

The sixth man of the year is Arizona State's Alonzo Verge.

Ten players were named to the all-Pac-12 first team

Oscar da Silva, Stanford

CJ Elleby, Washington State

Remy Martin, Arizona State

Zeke Nnaji, Arizona

Onyeka Okongwu, USC

Payton Pritchard, Oregon

Chris Smith, UCLA

Isaiah Stewart, Washington

Tres Tinkle, Oregon State

McKinley Wright IV, Colorado

Second-team selections:

Timmy Allen, Utah

Tyler Bey, Colorado

Matt Bradley, Cal

Nico Mannion, Arizona

Jonah Mathews, USC

Bradley averaged 17.5 points, which ranked sixth in the league.  He was third in the conference in scoring in Pac-12 games only, averaging 17.4 points per game, leaving him behind only Pritchard and Remy Martin.

He ranked seventh in three-pointers made per game (2.1) and was eighth in three-point percentage (38.6). He did that despite a slow-paced offense that kept the score down, but helped the Bears stay in games. as Bradley notes in the video.

He scored 20 or more points in 11 games this season and has scored in double figures in all but two games. Bradley was named Pac-12 Player of the Week twice, helping Cal to weekend home sweeps over the Washington schools as well as Colorado and Utah.

Cal plays Stanford in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.