Kansas basketball: Multiple Jayhawks earn All-American honors

ESPN released their All-American teams, and Kansas basketball’s Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike both made the list.

The awards just keep rolling in for Kansas basketball. After both Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike were named to the First-Team All-Big 12 team, they’ve now been named All-Americans.

ESPN selected Udoka Azubuike and Devon Dotson as First-Team All-Americans, and Marcus Garrett was awarded the Defensive Player of the Year honor. Kansas basketball was the only team to have multiple players on either the First or Second-Team, which further confirms just how much better they were this season than even the elite teams.

Another interesting note is that the Jayhawks played against multiple award winners this season:

• Anthony Grant (Dayton), Coach of the Year
• Vernon Carey Jr. (Duke), Freshman of the Year
• Mark Vital (Baylor), Defensive Player of the Year Runner-Up
• Steve Forbes (ETSU), Small-school Coach of the Year
• Obi Toppin (Dayton), First-Team All-American and National Player of the Year Runner-Up

The fact that Kansas played so many of the award winners speaks to how difficult of a schedule the Jayhawks played this season. Overall, their strength of schedule was ranked No. 2 by KenPom and No. 11 by BPI.

The duo of Azubuike and Dotson was also named to multiple other All-American teams from other publications like USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, and NBC Sports. Interestingly, both Dotson and Azubuike were either named to the First or Second-Team on each of these lists, with some putting Dotson on the First-Team and Azubuike on the Second-Team or vice versa.

Based on their stats, both should be First-Team All-Americans.

Azubuike averaged 13.7 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per game. He also shot a ridiculous 74.8 percent from the field, the best percentage in the nation. Dotson led the Big 12 in scoring with 18.1 points per game. He also averaged 4 assists, and 2.1 steals per game.

It’s really too bad this team didn’t get a chance to win it all. Their talent wasn’t matched by any team in college basketball, and they’ll always be remembered as all-time Kansas basketball greats.