Mountain West Wire’s Player of The Year Watch list Results: POY and All-Conference Selections
The results are in, take a look at the awards and the 17th week’s results.
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The month of February made it a close one but the Player of the Year watch list results are in, and the winner is….
The staff at the Mountain West Wire wanted to do something a little different this year. We kept track of the top performers from teams around the Mountain West throughout the year and voted on who had the best performances that week.
The process churned out 17 weeks of results, highlighting multiple player’s performances in that time. Overall 31 different players received top-5 votes and every Mountain West team is represented on the list. But without further ado here we go.
[Editor note: As a staff there will be a one-time vote on these same awards, plus more, and it will be interesting to see if they are different because a one or two week surge would help them in these weekly rankings.]
Player of the year: Malachi Flynn, San Diego State (42 total points)
Malachi Flynn has been a major catalyst in the Aztec’s historic 2019-2020 season. His presence on the court this season for a Brian Dutcher team that reached twenty wins last season but lost it’s top-two scorers is more than impressive. Flynn’s leadership has led to a 28-1 (17-1 in MW) regular season finish, top-5 ranking, an at-large bid and maybe most importantly he’s helped make the players around him better.
His numbers weren’t eye popping, but were efficient and made an impact consistently on the best team in the Mountain West. He averaged 17.6 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 5.1 APG & 1.8 SPG in 29 games this season (all starts). Certainly an all-conference worthy stat sheet and his assists and steals per game totals were good enough to lead the entire conference in both categories. Flynn performed at a high level consistently throughout the season and had the best start of any in the conference and kept his level of play just high enough to fend off some other player’s late season surges for the award.
The dagger might have come this weekend in what looked like the battle for Player of the Year against Nevada and Wolf Pack guard Jalen Harris. Flynn helped his team obtain an 83-76 win while scoring 36 points on 13-20 made field goals (65%) while also grabbing 5 rebounds and dishing out five assists. This performance cemented Flynn as the inaugural 2020 Mountain West Wire’s Watch list Player of the Year. Congrats to Malachi and a special thank you to all who participated in the voting process throughout the year.
The rest of the All-Mountain West First team:
Jalen Harris, Nevada (35 Points)
Sam Merrill, Utah State (20 Points)
Derrick Alston Jr, Boise State(19 Points)
JaQuan Lyle, New Mexico (15 Points)
All-Mountain West second team:
Nico Carvacho, Colorado State (12 Points)
Bryce Hamilton, UNLV (12 Points)
Seneca Knight, San Jose State (10 Points)
Jazz Johnson, Nevada (9 Points)
Justinian Jessup, Boise State (7 Points)
The order for the Final week is as follows:
Week 17 Results
1. Malachi Flynn, junior guard San Diego State (5 Points)
17 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists against Colorado State
36 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds against San Diego State
2. Jalen Harris, junior guard Nevada (4 Points):
23 points, 7 rebounds and 2 steals against Wyoming
24 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds against San Diego State
3. Neemias Queta, sophomore forward Utah State (3 Points):
23 points, 10 rebounds and 2 assists against San Jose State
18 points, 14 rebounds and 2 blocks against New Mexico
4. Amauri Hardy, junior guard UNLV (2 Points):
24 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists against Boise State
17 points, 8 rebounds and 3 rebounds against San Jose State
5. Bryce Hamilton, sophomore guard UNLV (1 Point):
22 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals against Boise State
18 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist against San Jose State
Past Weeks:
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3| Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9| Week 10|Week 11| Week 12| Week 13|Week 14|Week 15|Week 16
Final Point Totals
Malachi Flynn, junior guard San Diego State (42 Points)
Jalen Harris, junior guard Nevada (35 Points)
Sam Merrill, senior guard Utah State (20 Points)
Derrick Alston Jr, junior guard Boise State (19 Points)
JaQuan Lyle, senior guard New Mexico (15 Points)
Nico Carvacho, senior center Colorado State (12 Points)
Bryce Hamilton, sophomore guard UNLV (12 Points)
Seneca Knight, sophomore guard San Jose State (10 Points)
Jazz Johnson, senior guard Nevada (9 Points)
Justinian Jessup, senior guard Boise State (7 Points)
Hunter Maldonado, sophomore guard Wyoming (7 Points)
Neemias Queta, sophomore forward Utah State (7 Points)
Amauri Hardy, junior guard UNLV (6 Points)
Isaiah Stevens, freshman guard Colorado State (6 Points)
Alphonso Anderson, junior guard Utah State (5 Points)
Carlton Bragg Jr., senior forward New Mexico (5 Points)
Lindsey Drew, senior guard Nevada (5 Points)
Justin Bean, sophomore forward Utah State (4 Points)
Marvin Coleman, sophomore guard UNLV (4 Points)
Orlando Robinson, freshman forward Fresno State (4 Points)
David Roddy, freshman guard Colorado State (4 Points)
Roderick “RJ” Williams, senior forward Boise State (4 Points)
Corey Manigault, senior forward New Mexico (2 Points)
Jordan Schakel, junior guard San Diego State (2 Points)
Donnie Tillman, junior forward UNLV (2 Points)
Abu Kigab, junior forward Boise State (1 Point)
Zane Martin, junior guard New Mexico (1 Point)
Matt Mitchell, junior forward San Diego State (1 Point)
Ryan Swan, senior center Air Force (1 Point)
Richard Washington, junior guard San Jose State (1 Point)
Yanni Wetzell, senior forward San Diego State (1 Point)
How It Works:
Each person will award 15 points in total to five players and should award it as so:
1st place (Player of the week): 5 pts
2nd place: 4 pts
3rd place: 3 pts
4th place: 2 pts
5th place: 1 pt
The player with the most points total will be our player of the week and we will keep track of the point totals every week so that the player who has the most at the end of the year will receive the Mountain West Wire Player of the Year award. Just copy the players below and type your names above it like we do for the pick them docs we get and award your points.
Now some guys made the list and others didn’t. A big thing to think about was consistency throughout the week. Something that hurt some guys was having a decent game one day and a bad one the other day. Guys who made the list had a great game one day and a good one on other days, or good games both days.
This column will come out on Sunday nights or Monday mornings depending on how late some games finish on Sundays.
