{"id":49405,"date":"2023-03-06T17:15:42","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T22:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=49405"},"modified":"2023-03-06T17:15:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T22:15:47","slug":"sec-awards-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/03\/06\/sec-awards-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Awards Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SEC season was a fun one, to say the least. The Alabama Crimson Tide<\/a> established themselves as the best team in the league from the jump. They also are the most likely championship hope from the SEC. Aside from that, there were two teams that really shocked the conference in a good way. Vanderbilt and Texas A&M were far better than anticipated and caused a lot of problems for the top half of the conference. Now, it’s time for the SEC Awards.<\/p>\n

Predicting the 2022-23 SEC Awards<\/h2>\n

First Team All-SEC<\/h3>\n

Brandon Miller<\/a>, Alabama<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wade Taylor<\/a> IV, Texas A&M<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oscar Tshiebwe<\/a>, Kentucky<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kobe Brown<\/a>, Missouri<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tolu Smith<\/a>, Mississippi State<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one was fairly simple. It contains the best player from each of the top four teams in the conference. Of note, the fifth player, Tolu Smith, was selected over any Tennessee Volunteers. Smith has been awesome and the Bulldogs surprised a lot of people this year as well. Smith is the main reason for this and fully deserves first-team honors.<\/p>\n

Wade Taylor deserves so much credit for the Aggies success this season. He is averaging 16 points and four assists and seems to hit every clutch bucket needed.<\/p>\n

Kobe Brown is putting up monster numbers for a fun Missouri team. He is putting up counting stats of 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists.<\/p>\n

Oscar Tshiebwe is having a down-year by his standards and still is an easy choice for first-team. Tough to imagine that 16 points and 13 rebounds per game is a bad year but that comes with defending Player of the Year territory.<\/p>\n

Second Team All-SEC<\/h3>\n

Colin Castleton<\/a>, Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liam Robbins<\/a>, Vanderbilt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ricky Council IV<\/a>, Arkansas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tyrece Radford<\/a>, Texas A&M<\/strong><\/p>\n

KJ Williams<\/a>, LSU<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one gets much harder. An argument can be made for about twenty people for these five spots. Again, no Tennessee player appears here. Quite honestly, Zakai Zeigler<\/a> <\/strong>and Santiago Vescovi<\/a><\/strong> cancel each other out in a way. There needs to be a Commodore on the list. Tyrece Radford is the most unsung hero in the country. Williams carried LSU to every win they have and Council is electric.<\/p>\n

Player of the Year<\/h3>\n

Brandon Miller, Alabama<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is this even a question? From start to finish, Miller was the best player in the conference<\/a>. He is also the best freshman in the nation. He is averaging 20 points and eight rebounds on incredibly efficient shooting numbers. Miller is the unanimous SEC Player of the Year.<\/p>\n

Defensive Player of the Year<\/h3>\n

Colin Castleton, Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honestly, this is a toss-up. Castleton has been solid averaging three blocks and one steal per game. Liam Robbins is another player considered here who averages slightly more blocks. Guard-wise, someone like D’Moi Hodge<\/a><\/strong> deserves a shoutout with a solid three steals per game. Castleton mostly gets the nod because Florida is a better defensive team and he is the anchor.<\/p>\n

Freshman of the Year<\/h3>\n

Brandon Miller, Alabama<\/strong><\/p>\n

See above. No questions asked. If you want to know who gets second place, it should probably be Anthony Black<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Coach of the Year<\/h3>\n

Buzz Williams, Texas A&M<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one was very tough. Jerry Stackhouse<\/a><\/strong> is also incredibly deserving. Both coaches took teams projected to finish very low in the conference and got them up into the top half. Williams is the pick because the Aggies had a legit chance to win the conference with a week or so left. He has done an amazing job turning this team around and relies heavily on toughness and physicality. Nobody wants to see the Aggies in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SEC season was a fun one, to say the least. The Alabama Crimson Tide established themselves as the best team in the league from the jump. They also are the most likely championship hope from the SEC. Aside from that, there were two teams that really shocked the conference in a good way. Vanderbilt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3244,"featured_media":49406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[773,1608],"tags":[481,1436],"class_list":["post-49405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-sec-basketball"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}