Monk Lands on NABC All-America Second Team

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kentucky men’s basketball freshman guard Malik Monk added to his long list of postseason awards by making the National Association of Basketball Coaches All-America Second Team on Friday.

Monk was joined on the second team by Dillon Brooks (Oregon), Luke Kennard (Duke), Jonathan Motley (Baylor) and Nigel Williams-Goss (Gonzaga).

The teams were selected and voted on by member coaches of the NABC, which currently has nearly 5,000 members consisting primarily of university and college men’s basketball coaches. 

It’s the fourth straight year a Wildcat has made one of the All-America teams. Julius Randle made the third team in 2014, Willie Cauley Stein (first team) and Karl-Anthony Towns (second team) earned the distinction in 2015, and Tyler Ulis landed on the second team a year ago.

The NABC is one of four “major” NCAA-recognized organizations that the NCAA uses for its consensus All-America teams. The other three are the Associated Press, Sporting News and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. 

Monk was named a second-teamer selection by Sporting News and the USBWA already. The AP has not announced its teams yet, although Monk appears to be a virtual lock for the NCAA’s consensus All-America teams.

The NCAA consensus All-America teams are compiled using a point system computed from the aforementioned four All-America teams named by coaches associations or media sources. The point system consists of three points for first team, two points for second team and one point for third team. No honorable mention, fourth team or lower selections are used in the computation.

In men’s basketball, the teams are not compiled by position so the top five players in points are named first team consensus All-American and the next five are named second team consensus All-American. If there is a tie for the final player on the first or second team in basketball, then the players who are tied shall be named to that team. Both the first and second teams shall consist of at least five players each. 

Monk’s NABC honors on Friday are just the latest in a long list of awards this postseason. Monk’s honors include:

About Monk: Monk has electrified crowds with his prolific scoring outbursts and high-flying violent dunks throughout the season. He’s currently averaging 20.0 points per game and has reached double-figure scoring in all but two games this season.   

 

With 14 points in the second-round game vs. Wichita State, he became UK’s all-time leading freshman scorer with 721 points, passing Jamal Murray’s output of 720 from a season ago. He has 18 games of 20 points or more, including a Kentucky freshman record 47 points vs. North Carolina in December.

Monk is ranked second among all freshmen nationally in scoring. No John Calipari-coached player has ever averaged more than 21.2 points for an entire season (Dajuan Wagner at Memphis in 2002).

The freshman from Lepanto, Arkansas, is the only freshman in program history with four 30-point games, and six times this season he has scored at least 20 points in a half.

Monk is averaging 2.69 made 3-pointers per game. If he maintains that average and UK plays a full 40-game schedule, he would finish the season with 108 3-pointers. That total would be just short of Jodie Meeks’ school record of 117 and the NCAA freshman record of 122 held by Stephen Curry.