Iowa’s Luka Garza is repeat Big Ten men’s basketball Player of the Year

For the second-straight season, Iowa center Luka Garza is the Big Ten men's basketball Player of the Year by voting of both league coaches and media.

Garza has averaged a Big Ten-high 23.8 points per game in leading No. 5 Iowa to a 20-7 record and its first 14-win conference season since 1987.

The senior from Washington, D.C., is the league's first repeat Player of the Year since Michigan State guard Mateen Cleaves in 1998 and 1999, and the third player to get the award twice since its inception in 1985.

Garza is the only Iowa player to have ever won the award. He also was named Sporting News' National Player of the Year Tuesday. He also was Sports Illustrated's and Associated Press' Big Ten Player of the Year.

Garza is the first player to get that Sporting News honor in consecutive seasons since North Carolina's Michael Jordan in 1983-1984. The other repeat winners were Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Bill Bradley and Bill Walton.

Iowa junior forward Joe Wieskamp was a second-team selection of the coaches and media after being a third-team pick of both last season. He also was an AP second-team pick. Wieskamp averages 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds, and is the league leader in 3-point percentage in conference games at .495. (51-of-103).

Wieskamp hurt his right ankle in Iowa's win over Wisconsin Sunday.

'He was a little bit better yesterday, a little better today,' Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Tuesday. 'He won't practice today. So we'll see.

'We'll see how he is today, tomorrow and go from there.'

Hawkeye forward Keegan Murray of Cedar Rapids is on the All-Freshman Team. Murray is averaging 7.2 points and 5.1 rebounds, and is second on the Hawkeyes in blocked shots and steals.

Murray is the fourth current Hawkeye to have been on the All-Freshman squad, joining Jordan Bohannon (2017), Wieskamp (2019) and CJ Fredrick (2020).

Bohannon was honorable mention in both media and coaches balloting, and Fredrick was honorable mention in the media poll.

Illinois guard Ayo Dosunmu and center Kofi Cockburn were first-team picks of the coaches and media. Garza and Dosunmu were the only unanimous first-team choices in either poll. The coaches had Purdue's Trevion Williams and Ohio State's E.J. Liddell on the first team. The media had Michigan's Hunter Dickinson and Indiana's Trayce Jackson-Davis.

Michigan's Juwan Howard and Hunter Dickinson are the league's Coach of the Year and Freshman of the Year, respectively, by the coaches and media.

The league's Defensive Player of the Year is Maryland's Darryl Morsell. Illinois freshman guard Andre Curbelo is the league's Sixth Man of the Year.

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