Okafor Nabs Three of the Top BIG EAST Postseason Honors

PROVIDENCE, RI (March 9) – Emeka Okafor of the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team became one of the most decorated players to come out of the BIG EAST Conference on Tuesday night as he was named the 2003-04 BIG EAST Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and the Aeropostale/BIG EAST Scholar Athlete of the Year.

Okafor was most recently named to the 2003-04 All-BIG EAST First Team as an unanimous vote. Okafor leads the nation and the league in blocked shots (4.5 bpg) and has the nation’s best 19 double-doubles during the 2003-04 season. The 6’10" center leads his team with 18.7 points per game and became the 14th player in NCAA Division I history with more than 400 career blocks. Okafor finished fifth in the league in scoring with an 18.7 average and first in rebounding with an 11.5 mark. A junior with a 3.76 grade point average in Finance, Okafor will graduate in May after three years of studies at Connecticut.

Okafor becomes the first player to ever earn all three of these prestigious awards in his career, much less in the same season. He joins Patrick Ewing of Georgetown, Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown and UConn’s Donyell Marshall as the only players to win the Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. Pat Garrity of Notre Dame is the only other Player of the Year (1996-97) to also earn the league’s Scholar-Athlete Award (1998-98).

Okafor joins Caron Butler, Richard Hamilton, Ray Allen and Donyell Marshall as UConn BIG EAST Player of the Year honorees. Okafor has now captured the Defensive Player of the Year and the Scholar-Athlete Award for the second consecutive season.