An easy one.
It’s official — Dalton Knecht is the SEC Player of the Year. The transfer from Northern Colorado absolutely tore up conference play, putting Tennessee on his back and carrying the Volunteers to a regular season title.
Knecht finished up his regular season averaging 21.4 points per game while shooting 47 percent from the field. The 6-6 wing shot just over 40 percent from three-point range.
After flirting with the number all season long, Knecht finally hit the 40-point mark on Saturday against Kentucky. That was a season high for Knecht, who also scored 39 against Auburn, 39 against Florida, 37 against North Carolina and 36 against Georgia. It total, Knecht put up seven games totalling 30 points or more. That elite scoring output had made him a legitimate first round prospect for this summer’s NBA Draft.
From day one — that preseason exhibition scrimmage against Michigan State — Knecht just felt different.
“Today someone asked me about him and, you know, we go through preseason and you guys watch a lot of it and see it and I don’t think any of you guys thought he was going to do what he did either,” Rick Barnes said of Knecht last week. “And I think the biggest moment was, I set it after the exhibition game against Michigan State. One, he played harder than he’d ever played and practiced defensively. And then when he made that dunk, I’m like, whoa. Because I hadn’t seen that either. I’d seen him do some things, and then certainly hearing about the guys in the summer, he and Jahmai going at it but I mean, there’s a lot of things he’s done, but I hope he’s got a lot more left in the bag as we head down the stretch here.”
Knecht was also named to the All-SEC first team, joining his teammate Zakai Zeigler. Mark Sears (Alabama), Johni Broome (Auburn), Zyon Pullin (Florida), Tolu Smith III (Mississippi State) and Wade Taylor IV (Texas A&M) joined the Tennessee duo.
South Carolina’s Lamont Paris was named the SEC coach of the year, while Zakai Zeigler was named the SEC defensive player of the year.
Knecht will look to stay hot this week, hoping to guide Tennessee to an SEC Tournament title and a No. 1 seed in next week’s NCAA Tournament.