Kansas junior guard Marcus Garrett has been named 2020 Naismith defensive player of the year, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced Wednesday.
Garrett, 6-5 guard from Dallas, won out over finalists Ashton Hagans of Kentucky, Tre Jones of Duke and Mark Vital of Baylor.
The finalists were chosen by the Atlanta Tipoff Club’s board of selectors, which is made up of leading journalists from around the country. They based their selections on “outstanding on-court defensive performances during the 2019-20 regular college basketball season.”
Garrett for the second straight season was a unanimous pick on the Big 12 all-defensive team. He also was named the 2020 Big 12 defensive player of the year.
Garrett averaged 9.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 4.5 deflections per game this season, including 6.9 deflections in his last nine outings for (28-3) KU.
“First, I would like to thank God. I would also like to thank my coaches and teammates because these awards are won as a team, not individually,” Garrett said Wednesday in a statement. “I’d also like to thank the Naismith Awards voters. We had a great season as did the other finalists who were also worthy of this award. I hope and pray all are safe with the current happenings worldwide, and we get back to normalcy soon. Rock Chalk!”
On the CBS Sports HQ awards show Wednesday, he said his goal in games is “to disrupt the ball, make it harder on the offensive player, play solid defense.”
Coach Bill Self called Garrett “the best on ball defender in the country and best off-ball defender in the country.”
Recently, Self described Garrett as “just a ball-playing dude. Whatever we need done, he’s always Johnny-on-the-spot to do it. After you watch us play a while, making shots and all that stuff is important, but there is usually one thing will key something positive for us. It’s usually Marcus Garrett defensively. It seems to me his plays defensively automatically lead to momentum changes.”
Of Garrett, sophomore Ochai Agbaji said: “I’d say he’s our defensive coordinator. The way he talks to us is just different on the defensive end. The way we call switches and communicate is up to him. Him leading the way, for our bigs and guards is big. He keeps us positive, has us keeping that right attitude at all times.”
