Congratulations to Matt Freeman who was amongst a programme-record six members of the Oklahoma University Sooners men’s basketball team named to the 2019 Academic All-Big 12 First Team last Thursday. The Sooners’ academic accomplishment marks just the second time in league history that a school has had six men’s basketball players named to the Academic All-Big 12 First Team (Nebraska in 2004).
Impressively Freeman has earned Academic All-Big 12 honours for three consecutive seasons.
Sam Timmins scored 4 points and grabbed a couple of rebounds as the University of Washington Huskies overcame Stanford 62-61. The win secured the Pac-12 regular season title for the Huskies that boast a 14-2 record – well ahead of second placed Arizona State that are 11-6 with a couple of games to play this week.
The University of California Riverside, with Callum McRae outstanding, fell to a narrow loss going down 70-68 at Cal State Northridge. The freshman centre out of the Manawatu had another career night in points and rebounds. He led the Highlanders (3-11 in the Big West Conference) in scoring with 20 points (7/14FG, 6/6FT) and rebounds with 13. This was followed by another loss to UC Irvine (68-47) with McRae once again in double-double territory posting 11 points and 12 rebounds.
Also in good form was Izayah Le’afa who rattled in 35 points as Sacramento State Hornets had a win and a loss in the past week. The Hornets trumped Eastern Washington 59-56 with the former Hutt Valley guard scoring 17 points. A couple of days later he equalled his season best 18 points in a disappointing 94-90 loss at Idaho that had lost 14 games in a row.
Sacramento State are 7-11 in Big Sky Conference play with two regular season games remaining.
Former Westlake forward Yanni Wetzell top scored for Vanderbilt University Commodores with 15 points (5/10FG) in its 64-57 loss to Texas A&M. Unfortunately, Vanderbilt have lost all 16 of its Southeastern Conference games and has two regular games remaining to chalk up a victory.
Jackson Stent scored 10 points on 4 from 9 from the field, including 2 from 4 triples, but Houston Baptist Huskies were comfortably beaten 110-75 by Lamar University. The Huskies are 6-9 in the Southland Conference.I
LACEY LOWDOWN 