Arizona Wildcats' Deandre Ayton wins Karl Malone Award as nation's top power forward

Arizona's Deandre Ayton was given the Karl Malone Award as the nation's top power forward, beating out Duke's Marvin Bagley and three other finalists.

The award was announced at a college basketball awards show in Los Angeles on Friday.

In other Naismith positional awards, Purdue's Carsen Edwards was named the Jerry West Award as the top shooting guard, Villanova's Jalen Brunson won the Bob Cousy point guard of the year award, Villanova's Mikal Bridges was named the Julius Erving small forward of the year and Seton Hall's Angel Delgado was named the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar center of the year.  

Ayton led Arizona in scoring (21.1) and rebounding (11.6) as a freshman last season. His 24 double-doubles over 35 games set a new UA school record and tied for first nationally last season with Minnesota's Jordan Murphy.

Ayton is expected to be one of the top three picks in the June NBA Draft.

When ESPN's Seth Greenberg asked Ayton about his most memorable moment of last season, the answer may have been a surprise to those unfamiliar with the drama of UA's year.

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"Playing at Oregon," Ayton said. "It was a lot of adversity in that game, a lot of distractions, but we had one goal to win that game. Not having coach (Sean) Miller coach that game was a lot of pressure. But it really brought me and my teammates together.

"It was us against the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win. But we grew and our relationships got stronger."

The Oregon game, of course, was the one UA lost 98-93 in overtime on Feb. 24, when Ayton had 18 points and 16 rebounds in front of a student crowd that taunted him after ESPN reported the night before he was the subject of a discussion Miller allegedly had to discuss a $100,000 payment for Ayton.

Miller did not coach in the game and stayed away from the team for five days before denying any wrongdoing.

Brunson made it a clean sweep of national POY awards when he was named the Wooden Award winner at the end of ESPN's show. Ayton, Bagley, Oklahoma's Trae Young and Kansas' Devonte' Graham were on hand as finalists.