Despite a slew of injuries and illnesses that severely hampered his junior season, Utah’s Branden Carlson was named to the All-Pac-12 Second Team on Tuesday as the league released its annual postseason awards.
Utah’s Lazar Stefanovic was named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.
The 11th-seeded Utes (11-19) meet Washington on Wednesday night in a Pac-12 conference tournament first-round game at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Tipoff is at 9:30 p.m. MST and the game will be televised by the Pac-12 Network.
Regular-season champion Arizona dominated the all-conference selections, claiming five of the six major awards.
Arizona’s Bennedict Mathurin is the Player of the Year, while teammate Christian Koloko is the Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player of the Year. Former Ute Pelle Larsson of Arizona is the Sixth Man of the Year, while Tommy Lloyd is the winner of the John R. Wooden Pac-12 Coach of the Year award.
Stanford’s Harrison Ingram is the league’s Freshman of the Year.
Carlson’s selection marks the 10th straight season that Utah has had a player earn all-league honors since it joined the league in 2011-12. The 7-footer prepped at South Jordan’s Bingham High.
Stefanovic, from Serbia, is just the second Ute to achieve All-Freshman Team honors. The first was Timmy Allen, in 2019.
Carlson missed five league games with COVID-19 issues and appendicitis, but still led Utah in scoring with a 12.5 average. He also grabbed 5.4 rebounds and shot a team-high .471 from the field in Pac-12 play. He added a team-high 16 blocked shots.
Stefanovic started in 15 of Utah’s 20 league games and made 27 3-pointers in league play, second-most on the team. He scored 18 points on 6 of 11 shooting in a home game against UCLA.