Lobos hoops notebook: Dent earns AP All-America spot, Junior Joseph and Pitino also honored

As the national honors for Donovan Dent kept rolling in on Tuesday, so did the attention people are starting to give to the matchup UNM’s star is going to have Friday with one of the nation’s other premier point guards.

Dent made the Associated Press All-America Honorable Mention team, being one of the top vote getters outside of the 15 players named to the first, second and third teams.

He is the fourth Lobo in the Mountain West era to earn AP All-America Honorable Mention, joining Cameron Bairstow (2014), Kendall Williams (2013) and Danny Granger (2005). Darington Hobson was an AP All-America 3rd team selection in 2010.

Dent, the Mountain West Player of the Year and first, averaged 20.6 points, 6.4 assists and 1.5 steals this season.

Fellow Mountain West star Nique Clifford of Colorado State was also named AP All-America Honorable Mention.

Kam Jones, the star point guard for No. 7 Marquette, who the 10th-seeded Lobos play on Friday in Cleveland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, was voted to the AP’s second team.

Jones averages 19.3 points, 5.9 assists and 1.4 assists for the Big East’s Golden Eagles.

“Many casual March Madness fans will be introduced to star talent they’ve either never watched before or even heard of,” wrote Christopher Kamrani in a New York Times article earlier this week. “Atop that list will be New Mexico’s do-it-all star guard Donovan Dent who has all the makings of the type of player who can carry a team on a deep run. Drawing Kam Jones and Marquette in the first round makes the stage even more set for Dent to introduce himself to the nation.”

While that matchup is atop the list of best first-round individual matchups, Rob Dauster of The Field of 68 podcast network on Tuesday noted the two might both be point guards, but likely won’t be guarding each other.

“Donovan is going to have to deal with a young man by the name of Stevie Mitchell, who they call ‘Off Night’ in the Big East,” Dauster said in Tuesday’s Mountain West Insider podcast. “... Kam Jones is gonna have to deal with Tru Washington.”

All-America ties to UNM

J.T. Toppin, the Big 12 Player of the Year, was named a second team All-American for Texas Tech. He was last year’s Mountain West Freshman of the Year playing for the Lobos and drawing rave reviews, especially early in the season, for the pick-and-roll chemistry he and Dent had been establishing. He transferred to Texas Tech last spring.

Wisconsin wing John Tonje also earned second team honors. Tonje played for Missouri last year and Colorado State the season before that. For about a 48-hour period last spring, he and Toppin were on the Lobos together. Tonje posted the always-important Instagram picture of himself in a Lobos jersey saying he had committed. He changed his mind within days when a larger NIL offer came his way from the Big Ten school.

St. John’s guard R.J. Luis, whom the Lobos faced in November in New York and who now plays for Richard Pitino’s dad, Rick Pitino, was also a second teamer.

Walter Clayton Jr. of Florida is a first team All-American and is a former teammate of Lobo center Nelly Junior Joseph at Iona, where both played for Rick Pitino.

All-District Lobos

Dent, Junior Joseph and Richard Pitino each earned National Association of Basketball Coaches All-District honors on Tuesday.

Dent and Junior Joseph were first team All-Mountain District selections for a footprint that includes all Division I schools in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Pitino was named the Mountain District Coach of the Year.

Dent also was on the team last year while Junior Joseph earned NABC All-District Honors in 2022 and 2023 while playing at Iona.

Making a bracket?

Think you know more about college basketball than the Journal sports staff?

OK, that might not be a challenge. But what about the most popular man in all of Albuquerque, 10-year-old Jack Pitino?

Jack is among those entering the Albuquerque Journal’s online group via the ESPN men’s tournament bracket challenge to see how their brackets match up with Journal staff brackets.

Go to https://tinyurl.com/journalbrackets to play along and compare your bracket with other local hoops experts. And the Journal sports staff.