Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis picked up some more national recognition Thursday, when he was placed on the 30-player Naismith Trophy "men's midseason team" and named one of 10 top players in contention for the Karl Malone Award.
While Purdue center Zach Edey is the frontrunner for national player of the year awards, Tubelis appears to have a realistic shot at winning the Karl Malone Award, given to the top power forward in college basketball.
Others named to the Karl Malone top 10 include Gonzaga's Drew Timme, Indiana's Trayce Jackson-Davis, Iowa's Kris Murray, Duke's Kyle Filipowski, Akron's Enrique Freeman, Clemson's Hunter Tyson, Dayton's DaRon Holmes, Providence's Bryce Hopkins and Norchad Omier of Miami (Fla.).
In a head-to-head matchup on Dec. 10, when Arizona beat Indiana 89-75 in Las Vegas, Tubelis had 21 points and seven rebounds while shooting 9 for 16 from the field. Jackson-Davis had 11 points and five rebounds while shooting 4 of 10 from the field.
Last week, Tubelis was one of 20 players named to the Wooden Awardβs late-season watch list. The Naismith Trophy earlier this week named Tubelis its national Player of the Week after the Lithuanian forward poured in 40 points against Oregon last Thursday, and another 19 on Oregon State on Saturday.
Tubelis also picked up national player of the week honors on Monday and Tuesday from NCAA.com, USBWA, NCAA.com, ESPN.com and Field of 68. He was also named the Pac-12 Player of the Week.
On Monday, Tubelis was also one of only five players named first-team All-American on a Stadium poll of national college basketball analysts and writers. The Sporting News last month already had Tubelis on its first-team All-American list of five.
Tubelis is leading the Pac-12 in both scoring (20.8) and rebounding (9.5), while averaging a double-double (21.8 points and 10.2 rebounds) in conference games.
UCLA's Jaime Jaquez is the only other Pac-12 player on the Naismith midseason team, which is essentially another watch list for one of the major player of the year awards.
