Culver, Beard Claim USBWA Top All-District Honors

ST. LOUIS – Texas Tech sophomore Jarrett Culver has been named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association District VII Player of the Year and Chris Beard is the Coach of the Year after the two helped lead the Red Raiders to a 26-5 overall record and the program's first Big 12 Conference regular-season championship.

A sophomore from Lubbock, Culver has also been named the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year, a Sporting News All-America and is a John R. Wooden Award finalists to highlight some of his most recent award selections. He led the Red Raiders with 18.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game this season after recording a career-high 31 points in the regular-season finale against Iowa State. Beard, who is a repeat winner of the award in his third season leading the Red Raiders and was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year for the second straight season, is 71-29 as the program's head coach and has led them to the winningest stretch in program history. The program is 50-5 in home games under Beard and is the second seed in this week's Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship for the second straight season. The No. 2 seed is the highest in program history.

The U.S. Basketball Writers Association released its 2018-19 Men's All-District Teams, based on voting from its national membership of 900-plus. The USBWA has selected All-District Teams since the 1956-57 season, its founding year.

For each of the nine geographic districts, ten players are selected (11 in the case of ties in the voting) as well as a player and coach of the year. Five schools – Vermont (Anthony Lamb and coach John Becker), Hoftstra (Justin Wright-Foreman and coach Joe Mihalich), Tennessee (Grant Williams and coach Rick Barnes), Texas Tech (Jarrett Culver and coach Chris Beard) and Gonzaga (Rui Hachimura and coach Mark Few) – earned both the Player of the Year and Coach of the Year honors. Nevada's Caleb Martin is a repeat District Player of the Year selection while Barnes, Beard and Few are all repeat District Coach of the Year selections.

The Big 12 Conference featured the Player of the Year and Coach of the Year winners in both District VI (Dedric Lawson of Kansas and Bruce Weber of Kansas State) and District VII (Culver and Beard). The Big Ten Conference swept both honors in District V with Player of the Year Cassius Winston of Michigan State and Coach of the Year Matt Painter of Purdue. The Mountain West Conference earned both honors in District VIII in Player of the Year Caleb Martin of Nevada and Coach of the Year Craig Smith of Utah State.

Texas Tech University Athletics

Culver, Beard Claim USBWA Top All-District Honors

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