Wright leads the way as four Buffs earn postseason awards

BOULDER — The 2020-21 Pac-12 season is in the books and that means it’s time for some awards.

Four Colorado Buffaloes earned season-long awards, the Pac-12 announced Tuesday morning…

• McKinley Wright IV was named to the All-Pac-12 First Team for the third-straight season. He was also named as an honorable mention for the All-Defense Team.
• Eli Parquet as named to the Pac-12 All-Defense Team.
• Evan Battey was named Honorable Mention All-Pac-12.
• Jabari Walker was named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.

While that’s a solid haul for the Buffaloes, there’s always room for more.

USC’s Evan Mobley swept the Player of the Year, Defender of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards. While he was probably the rightful recipient of at least two of those, Wright was a strong candidate for conference player of the year.

Colorado’s Tad Boyle was on the shortlist of candidates for Pac-12 Coach of the Year but the award went to USC’s Andy Enfield.

Buffs fans may feel snubbed in another category, as well. Early in the season, Boyle started a low-key campaign for Jeriah Horne as Sixth Man of the Year.

“Somebody’s gotta win Sixth Man of the Year in this league, might as well be Jeriah,” Boyle said.

Horne played well enough to win the award but he didn’t fill all of the necessary criteria.

The Pac-12 requires that players start in no more than one-third of his team’s conference games in order to qualify for Sixth Man of the Year voting. Horne started nine of his team’s 27 games this season—that’s one-third exactly—but all nine of those starts came during conference play. He needed to come off the bench in three more Pac-12 games to be eligible for the award.

Jordan Brown of Arizona won the award by putting up 8.8 points, 4.7 rebounds, 0.6 assists and 0.8 blocks per game during conference play. He did this while shooting 51.5% from the field and 58.3% from the free throw line. He didn’t attempt a 3-pointer.

Horne scored 11.5 points with 6 rebounds and an assist while shooting 51.2% from the field, 42.7% from three and 87.9% from the free throw line.

Horne’s numbers would have looked a little different if he’d come off the bench in three more games, but it would have taken a significant drop-off to prevent him from being the favorite for the award.