David Joplin Named 2023 Big East Sixth Man Of The Year

Like we said on Sunday when the Big East office announced the all-conference teams, they certainly do enjoy making many press releases when one would do. In any case, their choices allow us to specifically celebrate David Joplin. The Marquette sophomore was named the conference’s Sixth Man of the Year on Monday.

Joplin is the third Marquette player to earn this award, following in the footsteps of Davante Gardner in 2013 AND 2014 along with Andrew Rowsey in 2017.

Here’s how the league wrote up Joplin’s qualifications:

Marquette’s Joplin has come off the bench in each of the team’s 31 games, averaging 19.1 minutes per game. The 6-7 sophomore from Milwaukee, Wis., has made important contributions to MU’s regular-season title run. He is fifth on the team in scoring with a 9.2 average and grabs 3.4 rebounds per contest. Joplin ranks second on the team in free throw shooting, making 80.5 percent. He notched his career scoring high with 28 points in only 24 minutes in an 89-69 victory at DePaul on Jan. 28. He made five steals in the title-clinching 72-56 victory at Butler on Feb. 28.

In other awards news, Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner was named Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season, Joel Soriano from St. John’s was named Most improved, and Villanova’s Caleb Daniel’s took home the league’s Sportsmanship Award. All of the awards were decided by way of a vote of the league’s coaches, although they were not allowed to vote for their own players.

Marquette returns to action on Thursday, March 9, when they play in the Big East conference tournament quarterfinals. As the #1 seed, they will play the winner of the 8/9 game from the First Round, so the opponent will be either St. John’s or Butler. Tipoff is set for 11am Central, and FS1 will have the broadcast.