KNOXVILLE — Josh Richardson’s strong senior season earned the Tennessee guard some well-deserved accolades on Tuesday.
Southeastern Conference coaches named the Volunteers’ best player to the All-SEC first team and the league’s All-Defensive team.
Tennessee now has been represented on the coaches’ All-SEC first team nine times in the last 10 years, but Richardson becomes the first Vol to land on the five-player All-Defensive team multiple times after earning a spot on its as a junior last season.
“I’m thankful to see the hard work pay off,” Richardson said in a Tennessee release. “This wouldn’t be possible without my teammates. And Coach (Donnie) Tyndall has been very supportive this year.
“But there’s still plenty of work to be done this season.”
The Vols (15-15) plays Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament on Thursday night in Nashville.
Richardson finished the regular season ranked sixth in the SEC in scoring at 15.6 points per game and seventh in the league in both field goal percentage (45.8) and free-throw percentage (79.1) and led the league in steals (62) and minutes per game (36.2).
He accounted for nearly a quarter of Tennessee’s points and assisted on another 15 percent of his team’s points on a team that finished 10th in the SEC.
He is the only SEC player to rank in the active career top 10 in scoring, assists, steals and blocks. He became the 47th member of Tennessee’s career 1,000-point club in January, and only Wayne Chism (142) and Cameron Tatum (138) have played more games than Richardson’s 134. His 62 steals this season rank as the seventh-most for a single season in program history.
“We’re obviously very happy and proud of Josh,” Tyndall, Tennessee’s first-year coach, said in the program’s release. “These are both very well deserved honors for him. He’s had an incredible senior season and has represented our university and basketball team in exactly the right way.”
Tennessee’s had 46 players honored as All-SEC first teamers a total of 82 times, and Richardson and JaJuan Smith (2008) are the program’s only two All-Defensive team selections.
Here’s a complete list of the league’s postseason awards and All-SEC teams, as voted on by the coaches:
Coach of the year: John Calipari, Kentucky
Player of the year: Bobby Portis, Arkansas
Scholar-athlete of the year: Levi Randolph, Alabama
Freshman of the year: Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky
Sixth man of the year: Devin Booker, Kentucky
Defensive player of the year: Willie Cauley-Stein, Kentucky
First Team
Bobby Portis, Arkansas
Willie Cauley-Stein, Kentucky
Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky
Jarell Martin, LSU
Jordan Mickey, LSU
Stefan Moody, Ole Miss
Josh Richardson, Tennessee
Danuel House, Texas A&M
Damian Jones, Vanderbilt
Second Team
Levi Randolph, Alabama
Michael Qualls, Arkansas
K.T. Harrell, Auburn
Dorian Finney-Smith, Florida
Marcus Thornton, Georgia
Devin Booker, Kentucky
Aaron Harrison, Kentucky
Craig Sword, Mississippi State
Jalen Jones, Texas A&M
All-Freshman team
Anton Beard, Arkansas
Devin Robinson, Florida
Devin Booker, Kentucky
Trey Lyles, Kentucky
Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky
Tyler Ulis, Kentucky
Wade Baldwin IV, Vanderbilt
Riley LaChance, Vanderbilt
All-Defensive team
Marcus Thornton, Georgia
Willie Cauley-Stein, Kentucky
Jordan Mickey, LSU
Josh Richardson, Tennessee
Damian Jones, Vanderbilt