Individual honors continue to roll in for the Huskies. Ryan Boatright was first-team AAC (and some might argue -- including Boatright -- that he was the AAC player of the year), Amida Brimah was the AAC defensive player of the year, and on Thursday, freshman Daniel Hamilton was named rookie of the year while senior Pat Lenehan earned scholar athlete of the year honors.
Details via the news release:
Hamilton, a 6-7 swingman, has started every game this season for the Huskies and has filled the box score with his solid all-around play. He is UConn's leading rebounder at 7.6 per game and led the entire conference in rebounding in league games at 9.1 per game.
Hamilton is also UConn's second-leading scorer at 10.8 points per game and is second in assists at 3.6 per game. In conference games, those numbers went up to 11.0 points and 4.0 assists per game. He is among the top 20 in scoring, rebounding and assists in the league.
Lenehan's accomplishments, meanwhile, dwarf any on-court honors.
Lenehan, a 6-3 guard, is a former walk-on who earned a UConn scholarship this season. He has maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA as a molecular and cell biology major and intends to pursue a medical career with a specialty in cancer research. A Rhodes Scholar finalist, he has already been accepted to medical school at Harvard, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and UConn.
Lenehan has received some of the highest academic honors UConn can bestow, including the Goldwater Scholarship, the Presidential Scholars Award Scholarship, the UTC Academic Scholarship, and he has been recognized as a Babbidge Scholar.
Hamilton joins previous UConn rookie of the year winners Earl Kelley (1982-83), Nadav Henefeld (1989-90), Doron Sheffer (1993-94), Khalid El-Amin (1997-98) and Rudy Gay (2004-05). And Lenehan becomes the second Huskies player after Emeka Okafor (2002-03, 2003-04) to be named scholar athlete of the year.
