WSU’s Isaac Brown, Tyson Etienne win big in AAC men’s basketball all-conference awards
The championship season for the Wichita State men’s basketball team was rewarded on Wednesday morning when the American Athletic Conference released its all-conference awards for this season.
Wichita State’s first-year head coach Isaac Brown was the unanimous Coach of the Year, while sophomore Tyson Etienne earned Co-Player of the Year honors with Houston’s Quentin Grimes. Etienne was also voted first team all-conference, while WSU senior point guard Alterique Gilbert earned third team all-conference honors and Ricky Council IV was included on the all-freshman team.
The award added another chapter to the storybook start to the head coaching career for Brown, a 51-year-old, lifelong assistant who took over a program in turmoil on an interim basis and led the Shockers (15-4, 11-2 AAC), once picked to finish seventh in the AAC preseason coaches poll, to perhaps their most improbable conference title in program history and earned a five-year, $6 million contract along the way.
“It’s the players who deserve this award because they went out and executed like I said,” Brown said on his radio show on Monday. “They came to play for a Hall of Fame coach and when I was given that position, the first thing they did was back me. I credit those guys for staying together. I told them, ‘This is your basketball team, take ownership of it.’ So I think it would go to the players for making shots and defending at a high level and then the assistant coaches who did a great job with the scouting reports. Overall this was a team effort.”
Even though Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, who has the Cougars ranked No. 7 in the country, is a candidate for national Coach of the Year honors, there was little doubt that Brown would earn the nod from his peers. Brown inherited a team with seven newcomers shell shocked by the resignation of Gregg Marshall, the program’s coaching wins leader, a little more than a week before the start of the regular season. WSU also shook off a slow start because of COVID-19 issues early in the season to win 14 of its final 16 games.
Brown is the third first-year WSU coach to win conference Coach of the Year honors, joining Gary Thompson (1965) and Eddie Fogler (1987). Marshall is the last WSU coach to win the award, as he won three straight in the Missouri Valley Conference from 2012-14.
The Shockers are the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament being played this week at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. They will play the winner from Thursday’s South Florida-Temple game in the quarterfinals at 11 a.m. Friday with the game broadcast on ESPN2.
Etienne was also honored for his own meteoric rise, as the sophomore was not picked on the first or second all-conference team in the preseason poll. But he earned his respect with a breakout sophomore season that saw him average 17.1 points, drill 3.1 three-pointers per game and shoot 40% beyond the arc.
The 6-foot-2 sophomore sharpshooter joins rarefied territory in Shocker hoops history, as he is just the fifth WSU player in history to win a conference Player of the Year award. Etienne joins Antoine Carr (1982-83), Xavier McDaniel (1983-84 and 1984-85), Paul Miller (2005-06) and Fred VanVleet (2013-14 and 2015-16) as Shockers who have won Player of the Year honors.
“What allowed me to win this award is my teammates and my coaching staff,” Etienne said. “I’m always going to put the work in and always going to prepare myself, but at the end of the day there’s 15 other guys I go to war with every single night. To have those guys as my brothers, the soldiers that I go to war with, that’s why I won the award. The team finishes first in the American, not just one player.”
While juniors Dexter Dennis and Morris Udeze came away without being recognized by the league’s coaches, who could not vote for their own players, the team was happy to see Gilbert honored. The graduate transfer from Connecticut has given WSU’s offense exactly what it needed this season, as Gilbert finished with 10.1 points, second behind Etienne, and led the team with 4.2 assists and 1.5 steals.
Council (7.5 points, 3.9 rebounds in 16.4 minutes) follows in the footsteps of players like Toure’ Murray, Shaquille Morris, Markis McDuffie and Landry Shamet to earn all-freshman team honors.
2020-21 American Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Honors
Co-Players of the Year
Quentin Grimes, Jr., G, Houston
Tyson Etienne, So., G, Wichita State
Coach of the Year
Issac Brown, Wichita State*
Defensive Player of the Year
DeJon Jarreau, Sr., G, Houston
Freshman of the Year
Moussa Cisse, C, Memphis
Most Improved Player
Justin Gorham, Sr., F, Houston
Sixth Man of the Year
Boogie Ellis, So., G, Memphis
Darien Jackson, Sr., G, Tulsa
Sportsmanship Award
J.P. Moorman II, Sr., F, Temple
All-Conference First Team
Jayden Gardner, Jr., F, East Carolina
Quentin Grimes, Jr., G, Houston*
Landers Nolley II, So., G, Memphis
Kendric Davis, Jr., G, SMU*
Tyson Etienne, So., G, Wichita State*
All-Conference Second Team
Keith Williams, Sr., G, Cincinnati
DeJon Jarreau, Sr., G, Houston
Justin Gorham, Sr., F, Houston
Marcus Sasser, So., G, Houston
Brandon Rachal, Sr., F, Tulsa
All-Conference Third Team
Brandon Mahan, Sr., G, UCF
Darius Perry, Sr., G, UCF
Feron Hunt, Jr., F, SMU
Khalif Battle, So., G, Temple
Jaylen Forbes, So., G, Tulane
Alterique Gilbert, R-Sr., G, Wichita State
All-Freshman Team
Isaiah Adams, G, UCF
Tari Eason, F, Cincinnati
Moussa Cisse, C, Memphis
Caleb Murphy, G, USF
Damian Dunn, G, Temple
Ricky Council IV, G, Wichita State
* denotes unanimous selections
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 9:57 AM.
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