Four Big 12 Players Named to Karl Malone Award Watch List
Four Big 12 players were named to the 2021 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award watch list, announced on Thursday.
Baylor’s Mark Vital, Oklahoma’s Brady Manek, Texas’ Greg Brown and West Virginia’s Oscar Tshiebwe are all on the watch list for the award, given to the nation’s best power forward at the end of the season.
The winner of the award will be announced on April 9, 2021.
Vital, 6-foot-5, was an All-Big 12 Third-Team member and a Big 12 All-Defensive Team selection last season. He was also a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year finalist after he averaged 6.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.7 steals last year.
Manek, 6-foot-9, enters his finals season with OU after leading the Sooners in scoring last season at 14.4 points per game. He also snagged 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. He also shot nearly 40 percent from the 3-pont line, and his performance led to All-Big 12 Third-Team selection.
Brown, 6-foot-9, is a freshman who enters the Texas program as the No. 9 player in the national 2020 recruiting class. A high school all-America selection last year, he averaged 26.1 points, 13.2 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game for Austin Vandergrift High School in Austin, Texas, which went 33-3.
Tshiebwe, 6-foot-9, is coming off a 2019-20 season in which he earned All-Big 12 Second Team, All-Big 12 Freshman Team and All-Big 12 Newcomer Team honors. He led the Mountaineers with 11.2 points and 9.3 rebounds per game and was one of the most consistent players in the Big 12 last season.
Previous winners of the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award include Obi Toppin, Dayton (2020), Zion Williamson, Duke (2019), Deandre Ayton, Arizona (2018), Johnathan Motley, Baylor (2017), Georges Niang, Iowa State (2016) and Montrezl Harrell, Louisville (2015).
2021 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award Candidates
Mark Vital, Baylor
Aamir Simms, Clemson
Matthew Hurt, Duke
Drew Timme, Gonzaga
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Isaiah Jackson, Kentucky
Trendon Watford, LSU
Tre Mitchell, Massachusetts
Garrison Brooks, North Carolina
Seth Towns, Ohio State
Brady Manek, Oklahoma
Hasahn French, Saint Louis
Sandro Mamukelashvili, Seton Hall
Oscar da Silva, Stanford
John Fulkerson, Tennessee
Greg Brown, Texas
Kevin Marfo, Texas A&M
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Villanova
Oscar Tshiebwe, West Virginia
Nate Reuvers, Wisconsin
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