March 10, 2009
Last week John Bryant was named the West Coast Conference Player of the Year and today he received another honor when he was named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Association 2009 Men's All-District Team, based on voting from its national membership. Santa Clara is in District 9, which consists of every school in California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Arizona and Alaska. The USBWA will name its All-America team on Mon., March 16.
Sean Denison was the last Bronco to receive the honor in 2007. This year's All-District team features the most players from the West Coast Conference since 2005 as Saint Mary's Patty Mills and Gonzaga's Matt Bouldin also made the team.
Bryant is the only Bronco in school history to score 1,600+ points, grab 1,100+ rebounds and block 200+ shots. Bryant finished his career at Santa Clara No. 1 in rebounds (1,152), No. 1 in blocks (246) and No. 6 in scoring (1,667). He is No. 1 in the country in double-doubles, rebounds per game and total rebounds.
His 27 rebounds vs. San Diego on Sat., March 7 were the most rebounds in an NCAA game in more than three years. Louisiana Tech's Paul Millsap had 28 rebounds vs. San Jose State on Feb. 15, 2006. It was the most for a Bronco since 1971 (28, Fred Lavaroni, Feb. 15, 1971 vs. Saint Mary's).
Bryant had 50 double-doubles in his career, a school record, and is No. 2 of active players behind Washington's Jon Brockman, who has 57 career double-doubles.
Bryant has a national-leading 26 double-doubles this year. He is the 30th player in the history of the NCAA to tally 26+ double-doubles in a season and only the third player in the 21st century.
Bryant finished the season with 16 straight double-doubles, dating back to Jan. 11, 2009. It is the longest streak since then-Wake Forest center Tim Duncan pulled down 17 straight in 1997. Duncan has gone on to win four NBA titles with the Spurs and two MVP awards. He is only the 24th player in NCAA history to grab 16 straight double-doubles or more.
Those 26 double-doubles this season included: vs. CSU East Bay (19/11), vs. UAB (17/15), at Georgia (13/12), at Montana (20/13), at San Jose State, (20/21) vs. Sacramento State (14/15), at UNLV (12/11), vs. Stanford (27/12), vs. UTEP (33/17), at Harvard (14/11), vs. San Diego (19/12), at Gonzaga (12/11), at Portland (15/16), vs. USF (18/10), vs. Houston Baptist (20/21), vs. LMU (12/22), vs. Pepperdine (19/10), at San Diego (23/20), vs. Saint Mary's (21/15), at Pepperdine (25/12), at LMU (25/16), at USF (17/12), vs. Gonzaga (16/11), Portland (22/21) vs. San Diego (24/27) and vs. Gonzaga (13/10)
He notched 15 double-doubles last season, five double-doubles in 2006-07 and had four double-doubles as a freshman during the 2005-06 season.
