Barry Brown named preseason Jerry West Award candidate

The hype continues to build for K-State’s men’s basketball team.

Barry Brown has been named as one of 20 shooting guards on the preseason Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award watch list, according to a K-State press release Tuesday.

Brown finished as an All Big 12 Second Team Selection in 2017-18 after a career-best season that saw him average 15.9 points per game on 44.8 percent shooting, including 31.8 percent from beyond the arc. He added 3.2 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.8 steals in 34.7 minutes per game. He was also selected to the Big 12’s All-Defensive team, becoming just the fifth Wildcat to make the All-Big 12 first, second or third team and the All-Defensive team in the same season.

Brown is joined on the Jerry West Award watch list by two other Big 12 players: Kansas freshman Quentin Grimes and Texas Tech sophomore Jarret Culver. The award is presented annually by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the “Naismith Starting Five,” which includes the Bob Cousy Point Guard Award, the Julius Erving Small Forward Award, the Karl Malone Power Forward Award and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center Award.

The list will be narrowed to 10 in mid-Febuary and five finalists will be presented to the Naismith Hall of Fame Selection committee in March. The winner will be presented at the ESPN College Basketball Awards Show in Los Angeles April 12, 2019.