Inside The Huskies

UW's Osobor Picks Up Pair of Preseason Honors

The power forward was named first-team All-Big Ten.

Dan Raley

Great Osobor is guarded by Purdue's Braden Smith in the NCAA Tournament.
Great Osobor is guarded by Purdue's Braden Smith in the NCAA Tournament. / USA TODAY Sports

Great Osobor, the reigning Mountain West Player of the Year, continues to hold plenty of college basketball sway since transferring to the University of Washington by turning up this week on preseason All-Big Ten and All-America teams selected by Blue Ribbon Yearbook.

Osobor is a 6-foot-8 senior power forward who came to the Huskies with coach Danny Sprinkle from Utah State and Montana State.

He landed on Blue Ribbon's All-Big Ten first team with Purdue's Braden Smith, a 6-foot junior point guard; Iowa's Payton Sandfort, a 6-foot-7 senior small forward; Minnesota's Dawson Garcia, a 6-foot-11 senior power forward; and Indiana's Oumar Ballo, a 7-foot senior center. Smith was picked as conference's the Player of the Year.

BLUE RIBBON ALL-BIG TEN FIRST TEAM

F -- Great Osobor, 6-8, Sr., Washington

17.7 ppg, 9 rpg

F -- Payton Sandfort, 6-7 Sr., Iowa

16.4 ppg, 4.2 rpg

F -- Dawson Garcia, 6-11, Sr., Minnesota

17.6 ppg, 6.7 rpg

C -- Oumar Ballo, 7-0, Sr., Indiana

12.9 ppg, 10.1 rpg

G -- Braden Smith, 6-0, Purdue

12 ppg, 7.5 apg

Osobor also was singled out as one of the nation's top 20 players by earning a fourth-unit spot on Blue Ribbon's All-America team.

He received that designation with Houston's L.J. Cryer, a 6-foot-1 senior combo guard; UAB's Yaxel Lendeborg, a 6-foot-9 senior power forward; Wake Forest's Hunter Sallis, a 6-foot-5 senior shooting guard; and Ballo.

Sallis and Ballo are former Gonzaga players, with Ballo also spending time at Arizona.

Osobor, who hails from the London suburbs, comes off a junior season at Utah State in which he averaged 17.7 points and 9 rebounds per game for an NCAA Tournament team. He shot 57.5 percent and collected 15 double-double outings.

BLUE RIBBON'S ALL-AMER. 4TH TEAM

F -- Great Osobor, 6-8, Sr., Washington

17.7 ppg, 9 rpg

F -- Yaxel Lendeborg, 6-9, Sr., UAB

13.8 ppg, 10.6 rpg

C -- Oumar Ballo, 7-0, Sr., Indiana

12.9 ppg, 10.1 rpg

G -- Hunter Sallis, 6-5, Sr., Wake Forest

18 ppg, 4.1 apg

G -- L.J. Cryer, 6-1, Sr., Houston

15.5 ppg, 2.4 apg

Blue Ribbon's first-team All-Americans are North Carolina's R.J. Davis, a 6-foot senior point guard; Kansas' Hunter Dickinson, a 7-foot-2 senior center; Connecticut's Alex Karaban, a 6-foot-8 junior forward; Arizona's Caleb Love, a 6-foot-4, senior shooting guard; and Alabama's Mark Sears, a 6-foot-1 senior point guard.

Karaban has helped lead UConn to consecutive NCAA tournaments. Sears averaged 21.5 ppg last season, Davis 21.2. Dickson averaged a double-double, 17.9 points and 10.9 rebounds. Love was an 18-point scorer in the Pac-12's final season.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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