Jaime Jaquez Jr., Mick Cronin Help UCLA Rack Up Pac-12 Awards

Jaquez won Player of the Year, Cronin won Coach of the Year, Jaylen Clark won Defensive Player of the Year and Adem Bona won Freshman of the Year

The Bruins didn't sweep the annual conference awards, but they sure did reel in plenty of hardware.

The Pac-12 unveiled its 2022-2023 All-Conference Teams and Annual Performance Awards on Tuesday, and UCLA men's basketball headlined the release after winning the regular season conference title by four games. Guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. led the way by winning Pac-12 Player of the Year, as voted on by the league's coaches, becoming the first Bruin to do so since Kevin Love in 2007-2008.

Meanwhile, guard Jaylen Clark won Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, center Adem Bona won Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and Mick Cronin won John R. Wooden Pac-12 Coach of the Year. Jaquez and point guard Tyger Campbell made the All-Pac-12 First Team, while Clark made the All-Pac-12 Second Team.

Clark and Bona secured spots of the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team, with Bona also making the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team alongside guard Amari Bailey. Bona was additionally an All-Pac-12 honorable mention.

The only awards UCLA didn't win were Most Improved Player – which went to Arizona center Oumar Ballo – and Sixth Player of the Year – which went to USC guard Reese Dixon-Waters. Guard David Singleton may have been in the running for the latter of those two honors had he not lost his eligibility when he filled in for an injured Bailey in the starting lineup in January.

Jaquez beat out Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis for the top award in the conference, doing so to the tune of 17.5 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. Jaquez led the Pac-12 with 6.1 win shares, and he capped off his senior season by scoring 20-plus point in seven of the Bruins' last nine games.

Campbell made the All-Pac-12 First Team for the third consecutive year, averaging 12.9 points and 4.7 assists with just 1.7 turnovers per game. Jaquez, on the other hand, made the All-Pac-12 Second Team in 2021 before securing First Team honors each of the past two years.

Jaquez and Campbell are the first Bruins to make three-consecutive All-Pac-12 Teams since Darren Collison from 2007 to 2009.

Clark became the first Bruin since Russell Westbrook in 2008 to win Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year after leading the entire country in defensive win shares and defensive box plus/minus. Clark also led the Pac-12 in steals per game with 2.6 before going down with an injury in Saturday's season finale against Arizona.

Bona joined Clark on the five-man All-Defensive Team, but he also ascended above all other first-year players in the conference. The former McDonald's All-American averaged 7.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 66.7% from the field and ranking No. 11 in the Pac-12 with a 20.7 player efficiency rating.

Bailey was one of Bona's biggest competitors for Freshman of the Year, averaging 9.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game, but the league's coaches voted in favor of the big man instead.

Cronin, meanwhile, won Coach of the Year for the second time in his four years in Westwood after leading UCLA to its first regular season conference title in 10 years. The Bruins finished the year with the No. 2 adjusted defensive rating in the KenPom, and they are ranked top-four in every major metric.

UCLA's award-worthy roster and coaching staff will next head to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament, where they were try to lock up a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

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