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Men’s Basketball: Wright, Bartley Earn Individual SBC Honors; Three Cajuns on All-SBC TeamNEW ORLEANS – The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns men’s basketball team picked up a pair of individual honors on Monday as Jay Wright was named the Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year with Frank Bartley named the SBC Newcomer of the Year as the 2017 All-SBC Men’s Basketball teams were released by the league office. Wright led the Sun Belt in steals (1.9 per game) in the regular season and finished the year in the Top 10 in scoring (15.6 ppg), assists (4.1 apg), field goal percentage (.451), assist/turnover ratio (1.8) and minutes played (34.2 mpg). He had a nine games with 20� points and had 11 games on the season with three or more steals. Wright is the second Louisiana student-athlete in the past four years to win the Defensive Player of the Year award following Elfrid Payton’s honor in the 2013-14 season. Bartley, who joined Tiras Wade (2005) as the SBC Newcomer of the Year, led Louisiana in scoring, and 3-pointers made per game (2.2). The junior finished eighth in the Sun Belt Conference in scoring, sixth in field goal percentage (.455), 12th in free throw percentage (.723), 12th in assists (2.5), third in steals (1.7), sixth in 3-pointers made per game and 10th in 3-point field goal percentage (.372). Washington, a New Orleans native and St. Augustine High product, led the Sun Belt Conference in rebounds (11.5) and field goal percentage (.596) while averaging 13.5 points per game during the regular-season. The junior forward finished the regular-season fourth nationally in double-doubles (22) and total rebounds (357) and was fifth among Division I players in both rebounds per game and offensive rebounds per game (4.16). Louisiana (20-11) will open play in the Sun Belt Conference Basketball Championships on Wednesday against Little Rock in a 5 p.m. contest at New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena. For the first time since the tournament moved to New Orleans, all 12 teams will compete for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. All games of the tournament will be televised by ESPN3, and available on the WatchESPN app, with the championship game set for a 1 p.m. CT tip and a nationally-televised ESPN2 broadcast on Selection Sunday. First Team All-Sun Belt Second Team All-Sun Belt Third Team All-Sun Belt Player of the Year Defensive Player of the Year Freshman of the Year Joe Gottfried Coach of the Year
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Wright and Bryce Washington were each named second-team All-SBC selections on the 16-player team with Bartley named to the third team. League champion UTA picked up a pair of individual awards as Kevin Hervey was selected as Player of the Year with Scott Cross tabbed as Coach of the Year. Georgia State’s D’Marcus Simonds was named as Freshman of the Year.