In helping lead the UCF men’s basketball team to one of its finest seasons in program history, junior forward Keith Clanton was named to the All Conference-USA First Team Monday.
“Well deserved. We had a lot of guys that played well on our team this year, obviously Keith had a really good year. I’m happy for him and all of his hard work,” Coach Donnie Jones said. “It’s a great honor for how he’s worked in the offseason as well as in the season.”
Clanton is just the second Knights player to earn the honors since UCF joined C-USA, following Jermaine Taylor, who was named to the All C-USA First Team back in the 2008-2009 season.
Clanton, who discovered he earned the prestigious award via Twitter, said he was happy about the accomplishment.
“It’s a good feeling to know your hard work payed off. I’m just happy to get it and want to focus on the conference tournament…Coaches told me to play like I’m the best player on the court. So I was trying to to be the best player in conference, and it just gave me a lot of confidence to come out and play everyday,” Clanton said.
Clanton joins Conference-USA scoring champ Will Barton, Jordan Clarkson from Tulsa, Cameron Moore from UAB, and Ricky Tarrant from Tulane on the first-team ballot.
The Knights finished the regular season 21-9 overall, which is their highest win total since 2006 when they won 22 games, as well as 10-6 in Conference-USA, which is their second best finish in league play since they won 11 contests also in 2006.
Clanton was a large reason for the Knights success, leading the team in scoring (15.o per game), rebounds (8.4 per game) and blocks (1.9 per game), while evolving into one of the top players in the conference.
The former Orlando Christian Prep standout finished in the top 10 in C-USA in three categories, ranking eighth in scoring, fifth in rebounds per game and third in blocks per game. His 161 blocks this year made him UCF’s all-time leader in swats.
Clanton also posted seven double-doubles this season, while pacing the Knights in scoring 15 times and in rebounding 18 times. He notched a season-high 28 points against Charleston earlier this season.
With the help of Clanton’s vast improvement and an overall strong team effort, the Knights finished with the fourth seed in Conference-USA and earned a bye in the first round of the upcoming league tournament, which UCF will start play in Thursday in the quarterfinals against either UAB or Tulane in Memphis, Tenn.
