Baylor men’s basketball picked up numerous All-Big 12 awards, led by head coach Scott Drew becoming the first in league history to win three-straight Big 12 Coach of the Year honors and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua being named Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year, as announced Sunday evening by the league office. The 2021-22 Phillips 66 Big 12 Awards were chosen by the league’s head coach, who were not permitted to vote for their own players.
Joining Drew and Tchamwa Tchatchoua in picking up individual honors was freshman Jeremy Sochan, who was named the Big 12 Sixth Man Award winner. Sochan is the third Baylor player to win the award in the last five seasons and the sixth BU player named Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year since 2009, joining LaceDarius Dunn (2009), Quincy Acy (2011), Taurean Prince (2015), Terry Maston (2018) and Devonte Bandoo (2020).
Four Bears were selected to the All-Big 12 teams, with James Akinjo named to the All-Big 12 First Team, Adam Flagler on the Second Team and Matthew Mayer and Sochan tabbed All-Big 12 Honorable Mention.
Kendall Brown and Sochan were unanimous selections on the Big 12 All-Freshman Team, Akinjo was named to the Big 12 All-Newcomer Team and Tchamwa Tchatchoua was honored on the Big 12 All-Defensive Team.
Everyday Jon’s Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year honor was shared when there was a three-way tie in voting between Tchamwa Tchatchoua, OSU’s Moussa Cisse and WVU’s Gabe Osabuohien. Tchamwa Tchatchoua’s selection marks a second-straight year the Bears have had a Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year honoree after Davion Mitchell became the first conference Defensive Player of the Year in program history a season ago.
Drew has been tabbed Big 12 Coach of the Year each of the last three seasons after leading the Bears to a combined 42-8 conference record since 2020. Despite being picked to finish third in the preseason, Baylor claimed its second-consecutive Big 12 Championship, becoming the first team other than Kansas to win consecutive Big 12 titles since Iowa State in 2000-01. Drew (2020, 2021, 2022) joins Rick Barnes (1999, 2003, 2008, 2014) and Bill Self (2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018) as the only coaches to win three or more Big 12 Coach of the Year honors.
Baylor Athletics became the first program in Big 12 history to win football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball Big 12 regular-season titles in the same season (2021-22). The Bears were already the only Big 12 program to win all three of those titles in the same calendar year (2021).
Baylor men’s basketball finished with a school-record 26 regular-season victories. The Bears are currently ranked No. 3 nationally and will be ranked in the AP Top-10 for a 47th-straight week when the updated rankings are released Monday. Baylor has topped the 25-win mark in each of the last three seasons and seven times in the last 13 years. Prior to 2010, Baylor reached the 25-win mark just once in the program’s first 103 seasons.
No. 2 seed Baylor opens play at the 2022 Big 12 Championship with a quarterfinal matchup against No. 7 seed Oklahoma at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN. The winner of that game will face the winner of Thursday’s 8:30 p.m. quarterfinal between No. 3 seed Texas Tech and No. 6 seed Iowa State. That semifinal game is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Friday, and the championship game is at 5 p.m. Saturday.
https://baylorbears.com/news/2022/3/6/mens-basketball-mbb-picks-up-numerous-all-big-12-honors.aspx
