Allen named WAC player of year; McCants, Rice named to second team

DENVER - Three of the most recognizable faces associated with NM State men's basketball got their hands on some impressive hardware from the Western Athletic Conference.

One of them moreso than anyone else in the conference.

In an announcement made by the WAC office Monday afternoon, NM State redshirt junior guard Teddy Allen headlined a trio of Aggies who collected all-league accolades from the conference by being named the WAC Player of the Year.

Allen, the fifth Aggie to lock on to WAC Player of the Year honors, also collected the title of WAC Newcomer of the Year and was placed on the All-WAC First Team as well as on the WAC All-Newcomer Team.

Redshirt senior forward Johnny McCants and redshirt junior guard Jabari Rice both earned spots on the All-WAC Second Team. McCants additionally received a nod to the All-WAC Defensive Team.

Joining the likes of Daniel Mullings (2014), Pascal Siakam (2016), Ian Baker (2017) and Jemerrio Jones (2018), Allen enters an exclusive five-man club of Aggies who earned WAC Player of the Year honors. One of the nation's best pure scorers, the Phoenix, Ariz., product consistently elevated his game in other areas through the course of the season to help lead NM State to a regular-season crown and the top seed in the 2022 WAC Tournament. Setting Allen apart from the other four WAC Player of the Year winners boasted by NM State's program is the fact that he's the first Aggie in program history to claim WAC Newcomer of the Year honors. He's the first Aggie to grab both honors and as well as the first NM State student-athlete to claim a league's Newcomer of the Year award since Jamie Peña did so in 1981 (Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Year). 

During his first season in Las Cruces, Allen maintained his reputation as one of the best point-producers in college basketball. Able to change the lights on the scoreboard at an astonishing pace, Allen amassed a total of 581 points - good for a WAC-leading average of 19.4 per game.

The land's 33rd-highest scoring player, Allen finished with 10 or more points in all but one of his team's 30 regular-season contests. Known also by the apt moniker of "Teddy Buckets", Allen piled up 15 performances of 20 or more points, four games of 30 or more points and one 40+ point night. Able to do a little bit of everything, Allen also served as the Aggies' leading rebounder (7.0 per game) and racked up seven double-doubles - a total which stands as the third-most by any player in the WAC. A do-it-all kind of guy, Allen added 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game while putting up shooting splits of .449/.320/.853.

For the second-straight season, Rice reeled in a spot on the All-WAC Second Team. The Houston, Texas, product's third All-WAC honor through his days at NM State was made possible by a scoring average of 12.0 points per game as well as a team-leading assist figure of 3.4 per outing.

Rice totaled 20 outings of 10 or more points as well as three games with 20 or more markers. His two double-doubles were one fewer than McCants, placing him third on the team in that category. Often times running the points for the Aggies, Rice dished out five or more assists on eight occasions while also adding 5.2 rebounds per outing. Putting up shooting splits of .391/.329/.777 allowed him to rank second on the team in scoring as one of the more recognizable faces in the league.

For the better part of the last decade, McCants has been affiliated with NM State and the Las Cruces, N.M., product gained his first All-WAC selection with Monday's announcement. One year after securing All-WAC Honorable Mention laurels, McCants decided to come back to Las Cruces for one last ride with his hometown club in 2021-22. That decision paid off as NM State wouldn't have claimed its fifth league title in the last five seasons without his 8.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and team-leading 1.8 blocked shots per game.

The WAC's best shot blocker in terms of both average (1.8 per game) and total rejections (49), McCants was one of three Aggies - a group which also includes Allen and Rice - who reached the 1,000-point plateau this season. With a trio of double-doubles on the year, McCants career rebounding numbers are good for the top ten in the history of the program. Currently, the hometown hero is one of just four players in the history of the program who have amassed 1,000 or more points, 700 or more rebounds and 100 or more blocked shots in their respective careers.

Allen, McCants, Rice and the rest of the Aggies are headed to Las Vegas, Nev., this week where they'll be the top seed for the 2022 WAC Tournament. Already locked in to one of the four available semifinal spots, NM State begins its quest for the program's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2019 Friday night at 7:00 p.m. MT against a team to be determined.