Kam Jones is a unanimous choice for the First Team, David Joplin is Third Team, and Royce Parham made the All-Freshman team.
The Big East wasted little time turning on the spigot of drips for the postseason awards for men’s basketball. On Sunday, the league announced the results of the coaches’ vote on the all-conference teams, saving the individual honors for a later date, just like they always do.
For YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles, this means three pieces of good news.
- Senior guard Kam Jones was one of four unanimous selections for the All-Big East First Team.
- Senior forward David Joplin was named to the All-Big East Third Team.
- Forward Royce Parham earned a spot on the Big East’s All-Freshman Team.
Jones was joined on the First Team by Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, Georgetown’s Micah Peavy, Villanova’s Eric Dixon, as well as Zuby Ejiofor and RJ Luis from St. John’s. Kalkbrenner, Luis, and Dixon are the three unanimous choices alongside Jones, and logic dictates that the Big East Player of the Year will be one of the four. First, the league straight up says that the POY will be one of the guys on the First Team. Second, if every coach in the league agrees that you’re one of the best players, then clearly one of the four will earn enough votes to be POY, right? It also means that we might be in store for a weird POY vote. There were four unanimous choices on the First Team a year ago, and somehow that meant that the guy on the team that finished 10-10 in conference play won POY even though one of the unanimous choices played on the team ranked #2 in the country at the time. You see my point.
As always, the Big East’s press release is light on details for each of the First Teamers. In fairness, they’ve got a lot to get to. Here’s the entirety of what they said about Jones:
Marquette’s Jones averaged 18.9 points, which ranks third in the league. He ranks second in assists with a 6.1 mark. His league-leading 3.5 assist/turnover ratio is fifth nationally.
Marquette’s press release isn’t a lot better, but it’s got more on Gary Parrish’s little homie from Memphis:
Jones, a preseason first-team selection, was a unanimous selection in a survey of the league’s head coaches. The Memphis native concluded the regular season third in the league in scoring (18.9 ppg.) and second in assists per game (6.1). He was named All-BIG EAST Second Team in 2022-23 and to the BIG EAST All-Freshman Team in 2021-22.
And for Joplin:
Joplin concluded the regular season ranked 17th in the BIG EAST in scoring (13.9 ppg.) and 10th in 3-pointers made per game (2.0). He was the BIG EAST Sixth Man of the Year in 2022-23.
And for Parham:
Parham appeared in all 31 outings off the bench this season and in league play averaged 5.2 points and 2.3 rebounds per game in an average of 14.5 minutes per outing.
We should note that the logic of the POY voting applies to the Freshman of the Year voting. It’s going to be one of the six freshmen honored by the league, but it’s safe to say that the two unanimous picks — UConn’s Liam McNeeley and Georgetown’s Thomas Sorber — are the only two candidates for FOTY.
Marquette returns to action on Thursday afternoon, when they face Xavier in the 4/5 game of the Big East conference tournament quarterfinals. Tipoff is scheduled for 1:30pm Central time, although that’s dependent on the first quarterfinal game of the day wrapping up on time. The broadcast will be carried exclusively on Peacock, so make sure your subscription is still active.
You can check out the entire press release on the all-conference teams right here.
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