ORANGE HONORS
Vols’ Williams, Barnes, tops in SEC
KNOXVILLE — All three of the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball coaches who have coached at Tennessee received votes from the Associated Press panel charged with selecting the league’s coach of the year.
It was the man who currently dons Tennessee orange who received the most.
Rick Barnes was announced as SEC coach of the year Tuesday as the No. 13 Volunteers capped a successful regular season with a strong showing in post- season awards decided by the AP and the SEC coaches.
The Vols’ Grant Williams was voted SEC player of the year by the coaches and named to the All-SEC first team by Associated Press voters. Barnes was also voted coach of the year by his colleagues. Georgia forward Yante Maten was voted player of the year by the AP panel.
Tennessee redshirt sophomore guard Lamonte Turner was named the league’s co-sixth man of the year by the coaches, and junior forward Admiral Schofield earned All-SEC second-team honors. Another second-teamer was Kentucky’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from Hamilton Heights in Chattanooga, also an all-freshman choice.
The Vols (23-7) begin postseason play at 7 p.m. EST Friday in St. Louis in the quarterfinal round of the SEC tournament. They will play the winner of Thursday’s game between Mississippi State and LSU.
Barnes received 10 of 15 possible votes in the AP balloting with four votes going to Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who coached the Vols from 2005 to 2011. First-year Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin also received a vote. He coached Tennessee from 2011 to 2014.
In his third year leading Tennessee, Barnes took a team picked by media to finish 13th in the SEC to the regular-season co-championship with Pearl’s Auburn team. Auburn and Tennessee are the top two seeds in the conference tournament, which begins tonight.
Williams, a sophomore forward, led Tennessee by averaging 15.6 points per game during the regular season. It was arguably Schofield who was most important to the Vols down the stretch as they stayed in contention for a league title. Schofield finished the regular season averaging 13.5 points per game and was named SEC co-player of the week the last two weeks of the regular season.
Turner averaged 10.6 points during the regular season and hit numerous clutch shots, including three 3-pointers in the final 11 minutes of last Saturday’s 66-61 win over Georgia that clinched the co-championship for Tennessee.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@ timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/ volsupdate.