Senior guard Barry Brown, Jr., earned Phillips 66 Big 12 Player of the Week honors for the first time in his career on Monday after posting the game-winner in Kansas State’s victories over West Virginia and No. 20/21 Iowa State last week.
Brown, who won the league’s Newcomer of the Week award as a freshman on January 11, 2016, becomes the 14th Wildcat to earn Player of the Week honors and the first since teammate Dean Wade earned the accolade on January 22, 2018. Overall, it marks the school’s 27th Player of the Week honor since the inception of the Big 12 in 1997, including the 11th under head coach Bruce Weber.
The 6-foot-3, 195-pound shooting guard from St. Petersburg, Florida, Brown averaging 26 points on 52.9 percent shooting (18-of-34) and 81.3 percent (13-of-16) from the free throw line to go with 3.0 steals, 2.5 assists, 2.0 rebounds in 37.0 minutes per game in the wins over West Virginia and Iowa State. He was particularly impressive in the second half in the two victories, scoring 38 of his 52 points (19.0 points average) on 53.8 percent shooting (14-of-26) and 80.0 percent (8-of-10) from the free throw line in playing 39 minutes.
Brown, who became the Wildcats’ ninth 1,500-point scorer and the first since 2013, opened the week by helping K-State engineer a school-record 21-point comeback in the victory over the Mountaineers on Wednesday. He scored a season-high 29 points on 9-of-14 field goals and 10-of-12 free throws to go with a career-tying 6 steals, 1 assist, 1 block and 1 rebound in 38 minutes. He scored 20 of his 29 points (on 7-of-10 field goals) in the second half, including the game-winning lay-up with 29 seconds. His 6 steals tied his own record for the eighth-most in a single game, including the second-most in a conference game.
Brown continued his impressive week in helping K-State win back-to-back games at Hilton Coliseum for the first time since 2010 and 2011, as he scored a game-high 23 points on 9-of-20 field goals to go with a team-tying 4 assists and 3 rebounds in 36 minutes of action. Much like the West Virginia, he did most of his damage in the second half, scoring 18 points of the Wildcats’ last 21 points, including the game-winning lay-up with 4 seconds.
Brown has now scored 20 or more points 19 times in his career, including 4 times this season.
For the season, Brown is averaging a team-high 15.2 points on 42.1 percent shooting to go with 4.1 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.9 steals in 33.7 minutes per game. He currently ranks second in Big 12 in steals and fifth in scoring.
K-State (12-4, 2-2 Big 12) concludes its two-game road swing on Wednesday night, as the Wildcats travel to Norman, Oklahoma to face nationally-ranked Oklahoma (13-3, 2-2 Big 12) at 6 p.m., CT at the Lloyd Noble Center. The game will air nationally on ESPN2 and the WatchESPN app.
