Sports Illustrated & NBC Name Morant All-America

A pair of men's basketball All-America awards were given to Murray State's Ja Morant, the sophomore Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year. Both Sports Illustrated and NBC named Morant to its list of the best of the best from the 2018-19 season. SI has Morant as a first team All-America and NBA has him on its second team.

At this moment, the Murray State all-star has been named a first teamer by Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report and second team by NBC, Sporting News and Stadium.

Morant helped Murray State to a 27-4 overall mark and after they won the OVC regular season championship, they won their 17th OVC Tournament Championship. The Racers are ready to make their 17^th NCAA Tournament appearance and find out their assignment on Sunday.

After a fabulous regular season of 763 points and 311 assists, Morant is still on track to become the first player to average 20 points and 10 assists per game since the assist became an official stat in the 1985-86 season.

He was named MVP of the OVC Tournament after averaging 32.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists/game while hitting 55.4 percent from the field and 79.2 percent from the free throw line. He had 29 points, eight assists and six rebounds in a semifinal win over Jacksonville State, including converting a traditional three-point play in the final 10 seconds to give him team the win. He followed that with 36 points, seven rebounds and three assists in a title game win over Belmont. Those two wins helped MSU avenge its only two OVC losses of the season.

Morant is also in the running for all of the major awards of college basketball, including the Wooden Award, Naismith Award, Oscar Robertson Trophy and the Lute Olson Award, each given to the National Player of the Year, and the Bob Cousy Award, given to the nation's top point guard.

2019 Sports Illustrated All-America Teams
FIRST TEAM
Zion Williamson, Duke
Jarrett Culver, Texas Tech
Ja Morant, Murray State
Grant Williams, Tennessee
Cassius Winston, Michigan State

SECOND TEAM
Brandon Clarke, Gonzaga
R.J. Barrett, Duke
Markus Howard, Marquette
Ethan Happ, Wisconsin
Carsen Edwards, Purdue

THIRD TEAM
Rui Hachimura, Gonzaga
De'Andre Hunter, Virginia
Ty Jerome, Virginia
PJ Washington, Kentucky
Dedric Lawson, Kansas

Murray State University Athletics

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