PJ Washington earns All-American honors

The regular season is over, which means the postseason honors will begin rolling out.

The first major honor for the Kentucky Wildcats comes for PJ Washington, who was named to the Sporting News All-American Third Team.

The sophomore forward leads the team in both scoring (14.9 ) and rebounding (7.5) while shooting 52.1% from the floor and 42.3% from three-point range. He’s scored 20+ points in eight of his last 14 contests.

Here is what Sporting News had to say about Washington:

Can there be any doubt that, if Washington had played the entire season the way he has the past six weeks, someone up there on that first team would have had to step aside? Over the past 15 games, he has averaged 18.2 points, topping the 20-point mark eight times. He is among the most versatile scorers in the college game, capable of scoring in the post into either shoulder and also of stepping behind the 3-point line and firing from deep. He also has improved as a foul shooter, which allows his coaches to trust him with the most important touches late in games.

Washington is the first Wildcat to earn All-American honor from this outlet since Malik Monk was a second-team pick in 2017. The Sporting News is one of the four “major” NCAA-recognized All-America teams that the NCAA uses for its consensus All-America teams. The other three are the AP, U.S. Basketball Writers Association and National Association of Basketball Coaches.

Washington joins the likes of John Wall (2010), DeMarcus Cousins (2010), Anthony Davis (2012), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (2012), Julius Randle (2014), Willie Cauley-Stein (2015), Karl-Anthony Towns (2015), Tyler Ulis (2016), Jamal Murray (2016) and Malik Monk (2017) to earn earn All-America honors under head coach John Calipari