Three Colorado Buffaloes players received individual honors from the Pac-12, as voted on by the Men's coaches of the conference.
All-Conference First team, All-Conference Second team, All-Freshmen team, and All-Defensive team. That's what Colorado's individual honors amount to, and it puts us in good company. Cal, Arizona, and Washington were the only other teams to post an equivalent collection of individual awards (2 players on All-Conference teams, a player on All-Freshman and All-Defense teams each).
Pac-12 Names All-Conference Teams
That's the same bye-earning company we were in not too long ago before the Buffs' road-trip-skid to Oregon this past weekend. More on that at the end.
Andre Roberson was named to both the All Pac-12 First team and the All-Defensive team. For stats, the CUBuffs.com press release says it best:
Roberson leads the Pac-12 in double-doubles (8), rebounding (10.9), blocked shots (2.3), and is 14th in steals (1.3). He is one of just two players to be ranked in the top 14 in the conference in both blocks and steals for all games. Roberson's combined blocks and steals per game rank best in the conference in both Pac-12 games and overall.
By the way, Cal's Jorge Gutierrez was named Pac-12 player of the year. Yes, the same Jorge Gutierrez that was held to zero points when Cal lost to Colorado in Boulder last week.
Autzenzoo.com thought Andre Roberson should be Pac-12 POTY
Who do you think should have been Pac-12 Player of the Year? Make the jump and Discuss!
Carlon Brown was named All Pac-12 Second team and can claim the highest per-game scoring average on the Buffaloes, as well as most threes made and second-most assists on the team. The Senior Guard also started all 30 of the Buffs' regular season games, something POTY Gutierrez did not accomplish. Spencer Dinwiddie was named to the All-Freshman team and is the only Pac-12 freshman to be shooting: over 40% from the field, over 40% in three-point shooting, and over 80% in free-throws; among other superlative statistics.
To round things out, U-Dub's coach Lorenzo Romar won the Pac-12 Coach of the year award, the third of his career. Since Washington won the Pac-12 regular season title it's not surprising, though before the voting results had been released, a number of sportswriters were stumping in favor of CU's Tad Boyle to win Coach of the year.
I think that the Buffaloes' Tad Boyle and Andre Roberson were the greater difference-makers for their teams than Gutierrez was for Cal or Romar was for Washington. Many say that in the absence of an Alec Burks-type phenom (also an all-conference first team and an all-conference freshman in the Big-12) that these awards default to the leaders of the best teams. The difference is that Colorado may have had more substantial individual efforts at times during the season, they could not sustain it for the duration of conference play; as evidenced by our slip to a tie for 5th place in the final regular season Pac-12 standings.
Could the Buffaloes have had a chance at winning COTY and POTY? At one point, yes. What do you think?
I think that's pretty awesome. Go Buffs.