After recording his 12th 20-point scoring game of the season against Arkansas on Wednesday night, Tennessee guard Dalton Knecht was named to the Jersey Mike’s Naismith Trophy Player of the Year Midseason Team, according to an announcement from the group on Thursday.
Knecht’s 22 points in the Vols’ win over the Razorbacks counts for his ninth 20-point game in Tenessee’s last 10 contests. Knecht’s lone game not scoring 20 in that stretch came against Kentucky, still tallying 16 points.
The 6-foot-6 guard’s 20.4 points per game is good for 25th in the nation and second in the SEC, trailing Alabama guard Mark Sears but just 0.1 points per game.
Knecht has been especially productive in conference play, though. Knecht’s scoring average bumps up to 26.0 points per game in Tennessee’s 11 SEC games so far this season. Knecht is also one of just two Division I players with three 35-point games this year, scoring 37 at North Carolina, 36 at Georgia, and 39 against Florida.
Speaking of Sears, the Alabama guard and Dalton Knecht land as two of the SEC’s five selections on the 30-man Naismith Trophy Midseason Team. Aso joining Knecht and Sears are Auburn’s Johni Broome, Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves, and Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor IV.
More from RTI: How An April One-on-One Game Was An Early Sign Of Dalton Knecht’s Brilliance
Overall, Tennessee’s fifth-year guard is averaging 20.4 points per game, 4.8 rebounds per game, and 1.9 assists per game on 47.8 percent shooting.
“But when you look at Dalton and what he is doing, because there is no doubt – I mean, when you think about it, you look at him, when teams get ready to scout and they’re looking and say, okay, we’ve got to control this guy some way. Or, they make up their mind we’re going to let him get all he can get, shut everybody else down. Which I don’t think many teams do it that way. But right now, I’m not sure there’s anybody playing at any higher level than Dalton is in the country,” head coach Rick Barnes said of Knecht on The Jim Rome Show last week.
Besides the four SEC players, other notable names on the list that Tennessee has recently played include UNC’s R.J. Davis and Armando Bacot, Purdue’s Zach Edey and Braden Smith, Duke’s Kyle Filipowski, and Michigan State’s Tyson Walker.
Here is the full list of players on the Jersey Mike’s Naismith Trophy Player of the Year Midseason Team, as compiled by Tennessee Athletics communications:
NAISMITH TROPHY MIDSEASON TEAM:
Max Abmas, Texas
Armando Bacot, North Carolina
Johni Broome, Auburn
Boo Buie, Northwestern
Devin Carter, Providence
L.J. Cryer, Houston
R.J. Davis, North Carolina
Johnell Davis, Florida Atlantic
Hunter Dickinson, Kansas
Zach Edey, Purdue
Kyle Filipowski, Duke
P.J. Hall, Clemson
DaRon Holmes II, Dayton
David Jones, Memphis
Dalton Knecht, Tennessee
Tyler Kolek, Marquette
Jaedon LeDee, San Diego State
Tamin Lipsey, Iowa State
Caleb Love, Arizona
Kevin McCullar Jr., Kansas
Tristen Newton, Connecticut
Antonio Reeves, Kentucky
Baylor Scheierman, Creighton
Mark Sears, Alabama
Jamal Shead, Houston
K.J. Simpson, Colorado
Braden Smith, Purdue
Isaiah Stevens, Colorado State
Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M
Tyson Walker, Michigan State
