Arizona's Keshad Johnson was dropped from the list of finalists for the Karl Malone Award, which was reduced from 10 to five players on Thursday.
Johnson's former teammate at San Diego State, Jaedon LeDee, is one of the five remaining finalists for the award, which honors the top power forward in college basketball. The others include Duke's Kyle Filipowski, Utah State's Great Osabor, Akron's Enrique Freeman and Dayton's DaRon Holmes.
Johnson is averaging 11.9 points and 5.8 rebounds for the fourth-ranked Wildcats (23-6), while he is also known for intangibles in leadership and effort. His two-point shooting percentage of 61.6 rates 151st nationally.
The fourth-ranked Wildcats now have only one player, guard Caleb Love, listed among the five finalists for any of the Naismith positional awards. Love was listed as one of the five finalists for the Jerry West (shooting guard) Award on Tuesday.
The Naismith positional awards are being cut down every day this week, with the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award finalists expected to be trimmed on Friday. UA center Oumar Ballo was among the 20 players named to the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar preseason watch list but was not among the list of 10 candidates named on Feb. 2.
