COLORADO SPRINGS -- BYU senior Keena Young and UNLV senior Joel Anthony were named the Mountain West Conference Men's Basketball Co-Players of the Week. This is the second weekly award of the season and career for Young, while Anthony garners his first ever weekly accolade.
Young, a 6-6 forward from Beaumont, Texas, led the Cougars to conference road wins at Wyoming (77-73) and TCU (85-72), helping BYU take sole possession of first place in the MWC standings. At Wyoming, Young tied his career-high with 29 points on 10-of-14 shooting from the field, leading all scorers. He scored 19 of his 29 points in the second half, as BYU earned its first road win of the season when trailing at halftime. He also grabbed six rebounds in 32 minutes of action. He followed with a game-high 25 points (8-for-13 from the field) to go along with six boards against the Horned Frogs. He also collected a steal, while shooting 9-of-11 (81.8 percent) from the charity stripe. For the week, Young averaged 27.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, while shooting 66.7 percent from the floor (18-for-27).
Anthony, a 6-9 native of Montreal, Canada, helped the second-place Rebels to home wins over TCU (82-67) and Wyoming (80-70) last week. Against the Horned Frogs, he set a new Mountain West Conference and UNLV school record with a career-high 13 blocked shots. He also grabbed a career-best 11 rebounds to collect his first career double-double, while scoring eight points, dishing out two assists and tallying one steal in 26 minutes on the floor. He was one basket short of recording UNLV's first triple-double since 1999. Against the Cowboys, Anthony scored nine points on 4-of-6 shooting, while blocking six more shots and grabbing four rebounds in 27 minutes of action. On the week, he averaged 9.5 blocks (19 total), 8.5 points and 7.5 rebounds a game on 8-of-15 shooting (53.3 percent) from the floor.