The league’s Associated Press player of the year and newcomer of the year is Tennessee forward Dalton Knecht, a transfer who helped the fifth-ranked Volunteers win a regular-season championship in the Southeastern Conference.
Lamont Paris of South Carolina was voted coach of the year by fourteen SEC reporters, who made their vote public on Tuesday. Both Johni Broome of Auburn and Knecht were selected unanimously to the first team.
Knecht averaged 4.8 rebounds per game, shot 40.5% from three-point range, and led the league in scoring (21.4 points per game). After dominating the Big Sky Conference in scoring the previous season, the fifth-year transfer from Northern Colorado didn’t miss a beat. In fact, late in the season, he helped Tennessee separate itself from a group of strong contenders by increasing his average from 20.2 points.
“That is absurd. Regarding genuinely scoring higher after joining the SEC, Knecht remarked, “I mean, that is crazy to think about that. “You play with one of the best point guards in the nation and center in Jonas (Aidoo) and Z (Zakei Zeigler) so they make it a lot easier for me to just go out and just go hoop.”
Since 2008, the Vols have not won an SEC championship outright.
The 6-foot-6 Knecht topped the country in scoring five times or more. His SEC scoring average of 25.5 points is the highest since Devan Downey of South Carolina averaged 26.2 points in 2009–2010. This season, he has five of the top nine scoring performances in the league.
