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Jaime Jaquez Jr. (photo by Jan Kim Lim)
Photo by: Jan Kim Lim

Jaquez Jr. Headlines All-Pac-12 Picks as Player of the Year

March 07, 2023 | Men's Basketball

SAN FRANCISCO – UCLA men's basketball senior Jaime Jaquez Jr. has been named the 2023 Pac-12 Player of the Year, as announced by the conference office on Tuesday.
 
Jaquez Jr. has become UCLA's first men's basketball player to secure the league's Player of the Year Award since then-freshman Kevin Love in 2008. He is UCLA's first senior to win the conference's prestigious honor since Ed O'Bannon in 1995.
 
Jaquez Jr. and senior Tyger Campbell have been named first-team All-Pac-12 selections, while junior Jaylen Clark has been listed as a second-team honoree.
 
Clark, a 6-foot-5 junior, has been recognized as the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. He has become the third UCLA player to win the league's defensive player of the year award (joining Russell Westbrook in 2008 and Nigel Miguel in 1985).
 
Adem Bona, a 6-foot-10 forward, has been honored as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and has been named an honorable mention all-league selection. Both Bona and Amari Bailey have been named to the five-person Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.
 
Clark and Bona have been recognized on the league's five-person All-Defensive Team.
 
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach, has earned his second John R. Wooden Pac-12 Coach of the Year Award in four seasons at UCLA. He has become the first UCLA basketball coach to receive that award multiple times. He previously was honored as the Coach of the Year in March of 2020.
 
The Pac-12 recognizes 10 players as first-team selections and five players as second-team selections. Campbell has earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors in three consecutive seasons. Jaquez Jr. was a second-team selection in 2021 before earning first-team acclaim in 2022 and 2023.
 
Campbell and Jaquez Jr. have become UCLA's first players to earn all-conference honors in three consecutive seasons since Darren Collison in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
 
UCLA (two players), Arizona (two players), USC (two players), Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington State all had student-athletes selected to the 10-person first team.
 
About UCLA's All-League Honorees
 
Jaime Jaquez Jr.
Jaquez Jr. enters the Pac-12 Tournament having averaged 17.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists in all 31 games (31 starts). He has become the seventh UCLA player to earn the league's Player of the Year Award (eight total selections from UCLA). He currently ranks fourth among all Pac-12 player in scoring and fifth in rebounding.
 
Jaquez Jr. and Campbell have become the 10th and 11th UCLA men's basketball players to have earned all-conference honors at least three times.
 
Jaquez Jr. will enter the Pac-12 Tournament having scored at least 20 points in six of UCLA's last seven games. He was recognized as the Pac-12 Player of the Week three times this season, tied for the most selections of any Pac-12 player this year with Arizona State's Desmond Cambridge Jr.
 
Jaquez Jr. is attempting to become just the sixth player in Pac-12 history to rank among the top five leaders (in the Pac-12) in scoring, steals and rebounding. The previous five players on that list include Tres Tinkle, Landry Fields, Sam Clancy, Adam Keefe and Derrick Dowell.
 
Hailing from Camarillo, Calif., Jaquez Jr. currently ranks No. 16 on UCLA's career scoring and career rebounding lists. He has scored at least 10 points in 28 of 31 games this season.
 
Tyger Campbell
Campbell has earned first-team all-league honors in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He has averaged 12.9 points and 4.7 assists per game this season, having played in all 31 contests (31 starts).
 
A 5-foot-11 guard from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Campbell currently leads all Pac-12 players in assist-turnover ratio (2.7) and ranks fourth in the league in assists per game (2.7). Under Campbell's leadership, the Bruins have had fewer turnovers than the opposition in 29 of 31 games this season.
 
Campbell enters the Pac-12 Tournament ranking No. 4 on UCLA's all-time assists list (614, trailing Pooh Richardson, Tyus Edney and Darrick Martin).
 
Jaylen Clark
Clark ranks second on UCLA's team in scoring (13.0 ppg) and rebounding (6.0). He currently leads all Pac-12 players in steals (78), tied for the No. 3 slot on UCLA's single-season steals list.
 
A 6-foot-5 guard from Riverside, Calif., Clark has been named as one of 10 semifinalists for the Naismith Men's Defensive Player of the Year Award. He has shot 48.1 percent from the field, averaging 2.6 steals and 1.9 assists per game.
 
This marks the second consecutive year in which Clark has earned Pac-12 All-Defensive Team honors. He has become the first Bruin to earn the all-defensive team selection in back-to-back years since Jaquez Jr. last year (Jaquez Jr. in 2021 and 2022).
 
Adem Bona
Bona has averaged 7.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.67 blocks in 30 games (29 starts) during his freshman campaign. He ranks second among all Pac-12 player in field goal percentage (66.7%) and is tied for the No. 4 spot in blocks per game (1.67).
 
A 6-foot-10 forward from Ebonyi, Nigeria, Bona scored a season-high 18 points in a win at Washington on New Year's Day. He has registered at least 10 points in eight games and logged a season-high 11 rebounds in UCLA's win at home against Arizona State last week.
 
Amari Bailey
Bailey has registered 9.6 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, playing in 24 contests (22 starts). He has shot 47.3 percent from the field and has tallied at least 10 points in 12 games.
 
A 6-foot-5 guard from Chicago, Bailey scored a season-high 24 points in the Bruins' win at Oregon State earlier last month, connecting on 10 of 16 shots from the field. He has totaled at least 19 points in three games during his freshman season.
 
Head Coach Mick Cronin
Coach Cronin has guided the Bruins to a 27-4 record and an 18-2 mark in Pac-12 play after having lost five substantial contributors from last year's 27-8 squad.
 
Now in his fourth season at UCLA, Cronin has led the Bruins to their highest regular-season win total since 2017 (28 wins in the regular season). He has been named the Pac-12 Coach of the Year for the second time in four seasons.
 
Currently in his 20th year as a college basketball head coach, Cronin has earned all-league "Coach of the Year" honors four times in his career – 2020 and 2023 at UCLA, 2014 in the America Athletic Conference at Cincinnati and 2006 in the Ohio Valley Conference at Murray State.
 
A candidate for this season's Naismith Trophy National Coach of the Year award, Cronin helped the Bruins secure the Pac-12 title by the league's largest margin (four games) since 2004.
 
This marks only the second time in the history of the conference in which one school captured the Player, Freshman, Defensive Player and Coach of the Year awards in the same season (also USC in 2021).
 
UP NEXT: UCLA will return to action as the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament on Thursday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Bruins will face either No. 8-seed Washington or No. 9-seed Colorado in a quarterfinal contest. Game time is 12 p.m. (PT).