Arizona's Azuolas Tubelis picked up his first Pac-12 Freshman of the Week award Monday after dropping 16 points and 15 rebounds on USC in the Wildcats' 81-72 upset at USC on Saturday.
By doing so, Tubelis beat out the usual winner of the award, USC's Evan Mobley, who averaged 22.5 points and 9.0 rebounds between the Trojans' win over ASU and their loss to Arizona.
Against the Wildcats, Mobley had 23 points and five rebounds, while hitting 7 of 12 shots from the field and 8 of 12 free throws. But Tubelis' production helped the Wildcats to a big road win over the conference's first-place team, which are normally significant factors in voting. Over two games last week, Tubelis averaged 17.0 points and 11.5 rebounds while shooting 48.3% from the field.
Arizona also nominated guard James Akinjo for Pac-12 Player of the Week after he had 20 points, seven assists and only two turnovers at USC but Washington State's Noah Williams picked up the award after a big week of scoring (NCAA March Madness also named Williams the national player of the week).
Williams hadΒ 40 points against Stanford and 32 against Cal in the Cougars' sweep of the Bay area schools (though only 12 against Washington in a loss earlier last week). He shot 40.6% overall from the field, hit 43.3% of his 3-pointers and was 82.6% from the line.
Counting Arizona's loss to UCLA, Akinjo averaged 20.5 points, 5.0 assists and 1.0 turnovers in two games while shooting 44.4% overall and hitting 14 of 18 total free throws (77.8%).
Arizona has had only one Pac-12 Player of the Week all season, with Jemarl Baker receiving the award on Dec. 14 after a three-game week that included his 33-point effort against NAU.Β
The Wildcats' only previous Pac-12 Freshman of the Week award this season went to Bennedict Mathurin on Jan. 4, after heΒ had 24 points and 11 rebounds while making 8 of 12 shots during Arizona's double-overtime win at Washington State on Jan. 2.
Playing without Kerr Kriisa but with a pair of veteran point guards, Estonia managed to qualify for the Eurobasket 2022 despite losing to North Macedonia on Monday.
Estonia lost 84-82 to tie with North Macedonia for the third and final qualifying spot in its group, but Estonia won the tiebreaker because it had the winning overall margin, having beaten North Macedonia 81-72 in the first matchup, played a year ago.
From half a world away, Kriisa was happy to see it happen.
!!!!!!!! https://t.co/yGFVWcwt4h
— Kerr (@KerrKriisa) February 22, 2021
