SEC names Players of the Week after first weekend of league play
With the first weekend of conference play in the books for SEC hoops teams, the league went ahead and named its Players of the Week and Freshman of the Week.
Leading the way as one of the Co-Players of the Week, longtime SEC hooper Jordan Wright earned the nod for piling up 20 points and 10 rebounds as LSU pulled off the most shocking win of the entire weekend, going on the road to pummel Texas A&M by 15, 68-53.
The Aggies were one of the league favorites entering the year and finished second in the SEC a season ago. Heck, even this year, they climbed all the way up to No. 12 in the rankings before free-falling completely out of the top-25. After a loss to last year’s basement dweller in the Tigers, the panic button could use a tap in College Station.
For LSU, the win is massive and signifies that Matt McMahon’s second group in Baton Rouge won’t go down with as much ease as his first group, which stumbled to a 2-16 finish in conference play.
The other Co-Player of the Week was South Carolina’s Meechie Johnson. Here’s another player off a team that finished near-dead-last in 2023 and was picked to do the same in 2024. Except South Carolina is off to a blazing start this year and that only continued to start the SEC slate as the Gamecocks proved themselves with a win over a very solid Mississippi State team.
Johnson led the way with 24 points and six rebounds and is currently averaging a hair over 18 points per game on the year. He and BJ Mack make for an excellent inside-out duo and Johnson may very well be circling First Team All-SEC honors.
Lastly, Kentucky’s Aaron Bradshaw wins SEC Freshman of the Week, and you could say the league just drew a name out of the Wildcats’ roster for the award after numerous Wildcat rookies made plays in the comeback win at Florida. However, it was Bradshaw who came through when it mattered most.
After struggling for much of the day, he made the biggest plays of the game on both ends of the court. With just over 90 seconds to play in a tie game with the shot clock running down, Bradshaw swatted a Florida layup attempt and the shot clock expired before the blocked ball even went out of bounds. Kentucky ball.
On the ensuing offensive possession, Bradshaw set a screen and popped to the top of the key, where DJ Wagner slid him the ball for a wide open three-point attempt, which he swished to give Kentucky the lead for good. Take a look at this incredible sequence from the freshman star: