Tyler Kolek Earns Preseason AP All-American, Preseason Cousy Award Watch Honors

Do you like preseason attention for Marquette men’s basketball? There’s been a little bit of it so far, including showing up at #5 in the preseason Associated Press poll and #11 in the KenPom.com preseason rankings.

On Monday, the Associated Press announced their preseason All-Americans, and would you look at that: Marquette point guard Tyler Kolek is one of five honorees. He joins Hunter Dickinson from Kansas, Kyle Filipowski from Duke, Armando Bacot from North Carolina, and Zach Edey from Purdue as the group of the best players in the country as voted on by a 60 person media panel heading into the 2023-24 season. Edey was the only unanimous choice out of the five.

Here’s what the AP said about Kolek in their announcement/press release/story.... and y’know what? Kind of interesting that Kolek was second in the order right after Edey, don’t ya think?

Kolek had a dynamic second season at Marquette after transferring from George Mason. The 6-3 guard was the Big East player of the year after averaging 12.9 points, 7.5 assists and 4.1 rebounds while shooting nearly 40% from 3-point range.

A third-team AP All-American after last season, Kolek was limited in the NCAA Tournament due to a thumb injury suffered in the first round, but his return helped the Golden Eagles earn a No. 5 ranking in the AP preseason poll.

“I feel like I’m always evolving, I can always get better,” Kolek said. “It’s just taking the next steps, seeing the game the way I want to see it, having the game slow down for me.”

That wasn’t the only preseason announcement for Kolek on Monday. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced the preseason watch list for the Bob Cousy Award on Monday. The Cousy Award is handed out every spring to the man voted to be the best point guard in men’s college basketball, and in the fall, they put a 20 man watch list before the season starts. There’s no guarantee of anything between now and the end of the season as far as staying on the list, but you betcha: There’s Tyler Kolek amongst the 20. Kolek is joined by fellow Big East guards Steven Ashworth from Creighton and Tristen Newton from UConn.

That award will have a fan voting component that will begin on Friday, October 27th, so be sure to wander back to HoopHallAwards.com to see if we can nudge Kolek along to that trophy this season.

Marquette starts the year on Monday, November 6th, two weeks from today, when they host Northern Illinois at Fiserv Forum. Tipoff is at 7:30pm Central time, and if you’re planning on watching on TV, be aware that the game will only be available in its entirety via streaming on the Fox Sports app. FS1 is doing Whiparound coverage for all seven Big East games scheduled for that night.