We’ve arrived at the summit of awards season here at Mid-Major Madness.
We’ve relived our game of the year, doled out individual awards and handed out our second and third all-MMM teams. That leaves just one piece of business: the first team. As you might expect, some of these names will already have been touched on and, it bears repeating, just because some players on this list qualified by virtue of playing in a mid-major league, it does not mean their team is a mid-major.
Here’s who we think were the cream of the crop in hopefully the only pandemic-affected season we see in our lifetime:
Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
There are thousands of players in mid-major basketball, so to be mentioned in both the preseason and postseason as some of the best in the sport is a feat in itself.
All five members of the Mid-Major Madness second team did that. They’re all NBA talents, and each of them led their school to either a conference title or an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021.
Here is the All-Mid-Major Madness Second Team:
Neemias Queta, Jr., Utah State
The Aggie big man is about as good as it gets on the defensive end, and he has the accolades to show it. Along with winning the Mountain West Player of the Year award, Queta was named the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year, the Bleacher Report Defensive Player of the Year, an AP All-America Honorable Mention and a finalist for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year.
Postseason awards: Gonzaga cleans up the individual honors midmajormadness.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from midmajormadness.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Photo by David K Purdy/Getty Images
After a year with no NCAA Tournament, the Basketball Gods are making us wait just a little while longer. Instead of the tournament tipping off Tuesday with the First Four, as is tradition, the opening four games will all take place on Thursday instead.
Rather than two games in two nights, all on TruTV, we will get four games on Thursday night, split between TruTV and TBS. As always, the First Four will feature two games between 16 seeds and two games between the final at-large teams in the field. Here’s how to watch each game: