UCLA's Jaime Jaquez Named Pac-12 Player of the Year

Bruins sweep major all-conference men's basketball awards announced Tuesday

Regular-season champion UCLA swept the significant all-Pac-12 men's basketball awards announced Tueaday, with Jaime Jaquez being named conference player of the year, Mick Cronin winning coach of the year, Adem Bona being tabbed freshman of the year, and Jayden Clark earning defensive player of the year honors.

The biggest question was whether Jaquez of Arizona's Auolas Tubelis would win Pac-12 player of the year. Tuberlis, who leads the conference in scoring a rebounding, seemed to leading that race most of the season, but Jaquez had strong finish to his season and the Bruins ended up winning the conference title by a comfortable four-game margin.

The Pac-12 tournament starts Wednesday, and the big question is whether UCLA's Clark will be able to play. He was injured in the finl regular-season game and is questionable for the Bruons first game Thursday.

That's about all you have to know, because, again, the Pac-12 named a 10-man all-conference first team, greatly diminishing the honor.

Cal, which finished in last place, got shut out of all of the all-conference honors, with Grant Newell getting honorable mention for the all-freshman tseam.

Here are the honrs:

Player of the year: Jaime Jaquez, UCLA

Coach of the year: Mick Cronin, UCLA

Freshman of the year: Adem Bona, UCLA

Defensive player of the year: Jayden Clark, UCLA

Sixth man of the year: Reese Dixon-Waters, USC

Most improved player: Oumar Ballo, Arizona

Here are the all-Pac-12 selections, as determined by a vote of the conference's coaches.

Pac-12 first team

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Pac-12 freshman

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.Cover photo of Jaime Jaquez and Mick Cronin by Ron Chenoy, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.