MWCConnection 2022-23 Basketball Awards: Our Top-10 Players

The quarterfinal round of the Mountain West Tournament begins later today. But before that tips-off, we close out the final part of our three-part series, recapping the Mountain West awards. Yesterday, we voted on our general awards and discussed our All-Conference teams on Tuesday.

Today, we’ll jump into who we think the top-10 players of the year were! We had seven voters list who were their top-10 MW players, the first earning 10 points, second with 9, third earning 8 and so on.

Let’s jump into who accumulated the most points!

1. Jamal Mashburn, G, New Mexico

2. Isaiah Stevens, G, Colorado State

3. Omari Moore, G, San Jose State

4. Elijah Harkless, G, UNLV

5. Jaelen House, G, New Mexico

6. Morris Udeze, F, New Mexico

7. Tyson Degenhart, F, Boise State

8. Steven Ashworth, G, Utah State

9. Jarod Lucas, G, Nevada

10. Max Rice, G, Boise State

Players who just missed the cut were San Diego State’s Matt Bradley and Nevada’s Will Baker. There were no ties, with Mashburn gaining all but one first-place vote. A total of 14 players received votes. Not to many’s surprise, but neither of the conference’s heralded freshman — Nevada’s Darrion Williams or Air Force’s Rytis Petraitis — received votes, either.

New Mexico had the most players voted into the top-10 with three — all cracking the top-6. Mashburn was the conference’s top scorer while House was one of the best table-setters. Udeze led the Mountain West with 11 double-doubles in the regular season with three 20-10 double-doubles.

Boise State was the only other program to have two in the top-10. You could’ve made a compelling argument for Degenhart for player of the year — as with many others on this list. Degenhart and Udeze were the only two forwards to crack the consensus’ top-10, the rest being guards.

Stevens was the only returning top-10 player, according to last year’s postseason poll. He missed a good portion of non-conference play, finishing with 24 games on the season. Though he averaged 17.9 points with a conference-most 6.8 assists on 47.9 percent shooting, including 38.6 percent from 3-point range and 86.1 percent from the free-throw line. Moore, who won the conference’s player of the year award, cracked the top-3, helping lead San Jose State to its most successful season since it joined the Mountain West.