Kentucky Wildcats rack up SEC Basketball Awards and Honors

The Kentucky Wildcats racked up several SEC awards and honors, which was announced by the league Tuesday.

The most prestigious was shooting guard Malik Monk winning the SEC Freshman of the Year Award by the league’s coaches.

Monk and fellow guard De’Aaron Fox were both selected to the All-SEC First Team, while forward Bam Adebayo earned second-team honors. All three Cats were named to the All-SEC Freshman Team.

Monk is the eighth Wildcat to win SEC Freshman of the Year as voted on by the league’s coaches in UK history. This season, Monk averaged 21.2 points per game, edging Thornwell by .001 of a point for the regular-season scoring title.

He already ranks in the top 15 of all-time scorers in a single season in UK history and is the only freshman in program history with four 30-point games.

Fox led the league in assists per game at 5.0 per game. He also ranked in the top 10 in scoring at 15.5 points per game. He is one of three freshmen in the country to average at least 15.5 points and 5.0 assists per game.

Adebayo averaged 13.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game during SEC play. He has a team-high five double-doubles on the year with three coming among his last six games. With back-to-back double-doubles against Missouri and Florida, Adebayo became the first Wildcat to register consecutive games with 15 or more rebounds since Jared Prickett on Feb. 6 and Feb. 9, 1994.

It was the first time a UK player had consecutive games with 15 or more boards in SEC play since Sam Bowie on March 1 and March 3, 1984.

Fox and Monk are joined on the first team by KeVaughn Allen (Florida), Georgia’s J.J. Frazier and Yante Maten, Sebastian Saiz (Ole Miss), Sindarius Thornwell (South Carolina) and Luke Kornet (Vanderbilt).

Adebayo was a second-team member alongside of Moses Kingsley (Arkansas), Kasey Hill (Florida), Antonio Blakeney (LSU), Quinndary Weatherspoon (Mississippi State), Robert Hubbs III (Tennessee) and Tyler Davis and Robert Williams of Texas A&M.