Cal Basketball: Matt Bradley Put on All-Pac-12 Second Team for Second Time

Cal junior Matt Bradley earned second-team All-Pac-12 honors for the second straight season, likely deprived of a spot on the 10-man first team because he missed seven games due to injury and the Bears finished last in the conference.

Bradley averaged 18.4 points this season, which would rank No. 3 in the Pac-12 but he has not yet met the requirement of playing in 75 percent of his team’s games. When the Bears (8-19) play their opening game in the Pac-12 tournament on Wednesday in Las Vegas against Stanford, Bradley will play his 21st game and meet that minimum.

USC freshman big man Evan Mobley swept the major honors, winning Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year. Mobley joins former Kentucky star Anthony Davis as the only players from a major conference to win all three of those awards.

The Associated Press named Oregon's Chris Duarte the Pac-12 Player of the Year and had Mobley as the Newcomer of the Year. Those awards are chosen by a panel of writers who cover the conference.

In other balloting by the coaches, Stanford’s Jaiden Delaire was voted Most Improved, Arizona’s Jordan Brown was Sixth Man of the Year and USC’s Andy Enfield was Coach of the Year.

"I was really pleased to see that Matt was able to be recognized having missed a chunk of games like he did," Cal coach Mark Fox said in the video at the top of this page. "To still be able be able to come out and perform fairly consistently when h was healthy. I think was a credit to him. So we're certainly happy for Matt."

Bradley missed seven games this season due to separate injuries to each of his ankles.

And while the Bears are clearly better with Bradley on the floor, there is the curious fact that they won just a single Pac-12 game when he played. That win over Colorado was fueled by Bradley’s career-high 29 points. He scored at least 20 points in six other conference games but Cal lost all of them.

The only Pac-12 players with higher scoring averages this season are Arizona State’s Remy Martin (19.9 points) and Stanford’s Oscar da Silva (18.8). Both were named to the all-conference first team for the second consecutive season.

Bradley became the 48th Cal player to reach 1,000 career points this season and he is the first Golden Bear to be twice honored on the All-Pac-12 team since Ivan Rabb, who was a first-team pick in 2017 and a second-team selection in 2018.

A year ago, Bradley averaged 17.5 points to rank fifth in the Pac-12. All four players who scored at a higher clip grabbed first-team all-conference spots, but Bradley was put on the second unit. The Bears were 7-11 in Pac-12 play last season, finishing in a three-way tie for eighth place.

The 6-foot-4 shooting guard is not alone in recent Pac-12 annals among players with lofty scoring averages who were not rewarded with first-team all-conference recognition from the coaches.

Over the previous 10 seasons, there are four other players left off the All-Pac-12 first team who averaged at least 18.4 to match what Bradley did this season:

— 2017: Arizona State’s Torian Graham was second in the Pac-12 in scoring at 18.6 points but the Sun Devils finished eighth in the conference and Graham did not find a spot on either the first or second team.

— 2014: Pac-12 scoring leader Roberto Nelson (20.7) of Oregon State was relegated to the second team after the Beavers finished 10th in the conference standings.

— 2014: Oregon’s Joseph Young (18.9), the Pac-12’s No. 2 scorer, was snubbed despite leading Ducks to tie for fourth place in the conference and an NCAA tournament bid. A year later he was named Pac-12 Player of the Year.

— 2013: Washington State’s Brock Motum, who led the conference with an 18.7 mark, was voted to the second team. The Cougars tied for last in the Pac-12 that season.

Here's the full 2020-21 All-Pac-12 men's basketball team:

Cover photo of Matt Bradley by Soobum Im, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo