🏀 Kansas Well Represented on USBWA All-District VI Team
LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas senior Ochai Agbaji, junior Christian Braun and head coach Bill Self have been named to the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) All-District VI Team for the 2021-22 season, the USBWA announced Wednesday. Agbaji is the USBWA District VI Player of the Year, while Self is the district’s coach of the year. Agbaji and Braun are both on the 10-member USBWA District VI team.
USBWA teams have been named since 1956-57 and are voted on by its membership which is made up of journalists nationwide whose interest is to cover college basketball. District VI consists of schools from the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Agbaji is making his second-straight appearance on the USBWA All-District VI Team as he was a 2021 selection, while Braun is honored for the first time. Agbaji is the eighth Jayhawk to be named USBWA District VI Player of the Year while Self has been at Kansas beginning in 2003-04. Self is the USBWA District VI Coach of the Year for the eighth time in his 19 seasons at KU. He was also the district coach of the year in 2005-06-09-11-16-17-18.
Both Agbaji and Braun are coming off Big 12 Championship All-Tournament selections after guiding Kansas to the tournament title last weekend. Agbaji was named the 2022 Big 12 Championship Most Outstanding Player. Earlier this week both Agbaji and Braun were named National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) District 8 team. Additionally, both were selected to the Academic All-Big 12 Team with Braun garnering first-team honors and Agbaji second team.
Agbaji, the 2022 Big 12 Player of the Year and on most all All-America First Teams, leads the Big 12 and is 25th nationally in scoring at 19.7 points per game. The Kansas City, Missouri, guard is second in the league in three-point field goal percentage (40.5%, 31st nationally) and in three-point field goals made per game (2.8, 42nd nationally).
A four-year starter for KU, Agbaji has etched his name into the Kansas records book. He holds the record for consecutive games of three-point field goals made at 53. He also ranks 18th on the KU career scoring list with 1,570 points, fourth on the three-point field goals made (239) and fourth on three-point field goals attempted (645).
A 2022 All-Big 12 Second Team selection, Braun is second on the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game, which is sixth in the Big 12. The Burlington, Kansas, guard pulls down 6.4 rebounds per game, which is eighth in the conference and he leads the team with 30 blocked shots.
Braun enters the 2022 NCAA Championship with 951 career points. He has made 127 career three pointers and has started 68 of 95 games played while at KU.
Self guided Kansas to its 63rd all-time, 20th Big 12, conference regular-season championship in 2021-22 as the Jayhawks went 14-4 in league play tying Baylor for the title. KU validated its achievement by winning the 2022 Big 12 Tournament last week in Kansas City. Self is 550-124 in 19 seasons at Kansas and has won 16 Big 12 regular-season titles and nine conference tournaments. Overall, Self is 757-229 in his 29th season as a head coach.
Ranked No. 3 in both national polls, Kansas (28-6) is the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region of the 2022 NCAA Championship. On Thursday, March 17, KU will face No. 16 seed Texas Southern (19-12) at 8:57 p.m. CST at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The contest will be televised on TruTV.
