MANHATTAN, Kan. – Senior David N’Guessan was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-Central Region Second Team on Tuesday morning (March 18) as the organization announced its All-District honors. The honors are voted on by NABC-member coaches across Division I.
It was the first NABC award for N’Guessan, who was named to the coaches’ All-Big 12 honorable mention team on March 9. He is the first Wildcat to earn all-district accolades since Keyontae Johnson and Markquis Nowell were selected to the first team in 2023.
A 6-foot-9, 220-pound wing from De Lier, The Netherlands, N’Guessan was the Wildcats’ leading scorer and rebounder for most of the season, as he averaged 13.3 points on a Big 12-best 64.4 percent (179-of-278) shooting from the field with 7.2 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 0.9 blocks in 29.7 minutes per game. He scored in double figures in a team-best 26 games, including a team-best six 20-point performance. He has also collected a team-best 7 double-doubles, including 5 in Big 12 play. In addition to being the league’s leader in field goal percentage, he ranked in the Big 12’s top 20 in both scoring and rebounding.
N’Guessan was joined on the second team by Creighton’s Steven Ashworth, Missouri’s Tamar Bates, Caleb Grill and Mark Mitchell, Kentucky’s Lamont Butler and Amari Williams, Vanderbilt’s Jason Edwards, Iowa State’s Keshon Gilbert and Lipscomb’s Jacob Ognacevic.
First team honorees included Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, Memphis’ P.J. Haggerty, Louisville’s Chucky Hepburn, Iowa State’s Curtis Jones, Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler, Kentucky’s Otega Oweh, Drake’s Bennett Stirtz and Nebraska’s Brice Williams.
The Central Region Coach of the Year was Missouri’s Dennis Gates.