Malik Monk named Jerry West Award finalist

The Kentucky Wildcats’ freshman phenom is one of five shooting guards who are up for the 2017 Jerry West Award. Malik Monk, the only freshman finalist for the award, joins a celebrated group of his peers that will be vying for the honor.

Monk joins Marcus Foster (Creighton Bluejays), Bryce Alford (UCLA Bruins), Luke Kennard (Duke Blue Devils) and Peter Jok (Iowa Hawkeyes) in the star-studded group featuring some of the best players in the sport. One of the five will hope to join the company of D’Angelo Russell (Ohio State Buckeyes) and Buddy Hield (Oklahoma Sooners) who took home the award in 2015 and 2016.

Malik is the first SEC player to be nominated for one of Hoop Hall’s awards as none were named finalists for the Bob Cousy Award on Monday. This is Monk’s second honor as he was named the conference’s Freshman of the Year on Tuesday and was also placed on the All-SEC First Team and the All-Freshman Team.