LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas senior Devonte’ Graham has been named 2018 All-America First Team by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA), the organization announced Monday.
The USBWA is among the outlets used for the official NCAA consensus All-America team and Graham is 2-for-2 on consensus All-America first teams as he was named to The Sporting News squad last week. Joining Graham on USBWA All-America First Team is Jalen Brunson (Villanova), Deandre Ayton (Arizona), Marvin Bagley III (Duke) and Trae Young (Oklahoma). There were two teams selected by the more than 900 members of the USBWA with the second team being Keita Bates-Diop (Ohio State), Trevon Bluiett (Xavier), Miles Bridges (Michigan State), Keenan Evans (Texas Tech) and Jock Landale (Saint Mary’s).
This is the second-straight year a Kansas player has earned USBWA All-America First Team honors. Jayhawk Frank Mason III earned the distinction last year and later received the Oscar Robertson Trophy recognizing the national player of the year by the USBWA.
In the past week, Graham has been named the Big 12 Player of the Year, All-Big 12 First Team, one of five finalists for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award and All-America First Team by The Sporting News, NCAA.com and the USBWA. On the court, he also earned Big 12 Championship All-Tournament Team honors after averaging 14.3 points and 10.0 assists in guiding Kansas to the tourney title.
On every national player of year watch list, Graham is the only player in NCAA Division I this season averaging 17.0-plus pts, 7.0-plus assists, 1.6-plus steals and fewer than 3.0 turnovers per game. Graham is third nationally, second in the Big 12, in assists per game at 7.5. The Raleigh, North Carolina, guard leads the Big 12 in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.7. Graham is scoring 17.3 points per game, which is third in the conference and he is sixth in free throw percentage (83.4), fourth in 3-point field goals made (2.9), seventh in 3-point field goal percentage (41.2) and fifth in steals (1.6).
On Feb. 26, Graham was named the Big 12 Player of the Week for the second time this season after guiding No. 6 Kansas (27-7, 13-5) to two victories that propelled the Jayhawks to their NCAA-record 14th consecutive, 18th Big 12 and NCAA-leading 61st regular-season conference title.
This season, Graham is logging 37.6 minutes per game this year, which ranks as the fifth highest average in a single season at KU. His 98 3-pointers made are fifth on the KU season list as last week he passed his own season high mark of 94 set in 2016-17. Graham’s 254 assists this season are second on the KU list.
Kansas enters the 2018 NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed and will face No. 16 seed Penn (24-8, 12-2 Ivy League) on Thursday, March 15, at 1 p.m. (Central) at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
— KU Athletics —