WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – Four Washington State University men's basketball student-athletes earned 2016 Pac-12 Men's Basketball All-Academic honors, conference commissioner, Larry Scott, announced Thursday.
Senior Junior Longrus earned his third-straight conference academic accolade, junior Josh Hawkinson picked up his second-consecutive honor while redshirt junior Valentine Izundu and sophomore Ny Redding each earned their first accolades.
For the first time in their careers, Longrus and Hawkinson were named to the all-academic first team, after both were on the second team in 2014-15. Both Izundu and Redding were named to the second team. This season marks the first time a Cougar has been named to the all-academic first team since 2011 and the first time multiple Cougars have earned first-team honors since four were named to the first team in 2009. The four total honorees are also the most since 2009.
WSU led the league with four honorees, followed by Stanford (one first team, one honorable mention) and California (one second team, one honorable mention) each with two. Oregon (first team), Utah (first team), Oregon State (second team), UCLA (second team) and USC (honorable mention) each had one representative on an all-academic team.
A native of Oakland, Calif., Longrus will graduate in May with degrees in management operations and marketing. This marks the third-straight year he has earned all-academic honors after being named to the second team each of the last two years. He started 14 of WSU's 31 games this season, averaging 1.8 points and 2.3 rebounds an outing.
Hawkinson, a native of Shoreline, Wash., is majoring in business. This is his second-straight all-academic honor, after being named to the second team as a sophomore in 2014-15. This season Hawkinson led the league and team with 11.1 rebounds per game, adding 15.4 points per outing. He tied his school record with 20 double-doubles and ranks third on WSU's single-season rebounding list with 321 this season. He was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team in February.
A native of Houston, Texas, Izundu sat out last season after transferring from Houston. Izundu started 13 of the 23 games he played in this season, averaging 3.8 points and 2.2 blocks per game. Redding, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, started five of the 29 games he played in, averaging 1.2 points and 1.4 assists per game.
One team of five student-athletes make up the first team, followed by the next five making up the second team. All others nominated receive honorable mention accolades. To be eligible for selection to the academic team, a student-athlete must have a minimum 3.0 overall grade-point average and be either a starter or significant contributor and in at least their second year at the respective school.
2015-16 PAC-12 ALL-ACADEMIC - MEN'S BASKETBALL
First Team
Name, School, Yr., GPA, Major
Casey Benson, ORE, SO, 3.47, Journalism
Josh Hawkinson, WSU, JR, 3.30, Business
Junior Longrus, WSU, SR, 3.39, Management Operations/Marketing
Dorian Pickens, STAN, SO, 3.37, Undeclared
Brandon Taylor, UTAH, SR, 3.40, Psycology
Second Team
Name, School, Yr., GPA, Major
Stephen Domingo, CAL, JR, 3.15, Undeclared
Malcolm Duvivier, OSU, JR, 3.11, Business Finance
Valentine Izundu, WSU, RS-JR, 3.13, Social Sciences
Ny Redding, WSU, SO, 3.19, Undeclared
Thomas Welsh, UCLA, SO, 3.18, Undeclared
Pac-12 Men's Basketball Honorable Mention All-Academic
Marcus Callen, JR, STAN; Nikola Jovanovic, JR, USC; Sam Singer, JR, CAL.