Kareem Award candidate Poeltl collects third Pac-12 weekly honor of season
SAN FRANCISCO - After helping UTAH to its first two-game road sweep as a league member, sophomore Jakob Poeltl claimed his third Pac-12 Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week award - as voted upon by media who cover the league - of the season on Monday.
Poeltl averaged 21.5 points on 60 percent shooting (15-25) from the floor and 81 percent at the foul line (13-16), 7.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists while recording only one turnover in UTAH’s (15-5, 4-3) sweep through WASHINGTON STATE and WASHINGTON last week.
In just 23 minutes of action in Thursday’s 92-71 win over the Cougars, Poeltl went 7-of-11 from the field en route to 14 points, five rebounds and five assists. Against the first place Huskies on Sunday, Poeltl recorded his ninth double-double of the season with 29 points (8-14 FG, 13-16 FT) and 10 rebounds along with four assists to lead the Utes to an 80-75 overtime victory.
Poeltl and COLORADO’s Josh Scott are the only Pac-12 players in the top 5 in the league in scoring (4th, 16.9 ppg), rebounding (5th, 9.0 rpg), field goal percentage (3rd, .637) and blocked shots (5th, 1.9 bpg).
It marks the fifth total Pac-12 Player of the Week honor among Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year award nominees Poeltl, Scott and Josh Hawkinson (WSU). Poeltl’s three weekly awards are the second-most among the 20 #KareemAward nominees, trailing only the five by Evansville’s Egidijus Mockevicius.
Nearing the midpoint of the Pac-12 season, 10 teams are currently within two games of first place in the league standings. This week’s 12-game conference schedule will feature quadruple-headers on Thursday, Jan. 28 and Saturday, Jan. 30. Thursday’s headliner pits No. 23 OREGON at No. 18 ARIZONA at 8 p.m. PT on ESPN2, while Saturday Hoops of Pac-12 Networks action will tip off at 12 noon PT with a clash of league upstarts WASHINGTON and USC in Los Angeles.
ALSO NOMINATED: Jordan Mathews, CAL; Josh Scott, COLO; Elgin Cook, ORE; Gary Payton II, OSU; Rosco Allen, STAN; Thomas Welsh, UCLA; Andrew Andrews, WASH.
2015-16 PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL PLAYERS OF THE WEEK