Regular-season champion Utah has placed two players on the All-Western Athletic Conference men's basketball team, and Utah coach Rick Majerus has been named WAC Coach of the Year for the third time.
Texas-El Paso and Brigham Young each placed two players on the first team, and Air Force, New Mexico, Wyoming and Hawaii also were represented.Utah sophomore Keith Van Horn was named Player of the Year, and LaDrell Whitehead of Wyoming was WAC Freshman of the Year.
Majerus, who edged UTEP's Don Haskins for coach of the year, led a team that finished 14-14 last season to a 24-5 overall mark and the WAC title with a roster that included six freshmen and four sophomores. Majerus also was coach of the year in 1991 and 1993.
Van Horn, a unanimous all-WAC selection, outpointed UTEP's Antoine Gillespie and Wyoming's Theo Ratliff to win player of the Year. He is Utah's third player of the year in the last five years.
A sophomore, Van Horn is second in the WAC in scoring, averaging 21.1 points per game, and rebounding, with 9.2 per game. He is third in field goal percentage (56.3) and in free-throw percentage (84.7). He also was third in the WAC in three-point percentage (40.9).
Whitehead is the first Wyoming player to earn freshman of the year honors since the award was instituted in 1989. A true freshman, he averaged 15.2 points and 3.5 assists per game and ranks fourth in the WAC in steals with an average of nearly two per game.
Joining Van Horn on the All-WAC team named Monday were Utah junior Brandon Jessie and the BYU frontline tandem of senior Russell Larson and junior Kenneth Roberts.
As for the WAC women's basketball awards, conference champion San Diego State placed three players on the first team, followed by Utah and BYU with two each.
Utah's Julie Krommenhoek was named freshman of the year, leading the league in three-point percentage (45.3) and three-pointers per game (2.6) while ranking in the top 10 in scoring (16.7 points per game) and field goal percentage (49.4 percent).
Krommenhoek was joined on the first team by teammate Amber McEwen, while BYU placed Debbie Dimond and Behka Stafford on the first team. It marks Dimond's third consecutive year receiving first-team honors, while Stafford is a repeat first-selection from last year.