By Steve Lansdale
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas guard Andrew Jones is the 2019-20 Big 12 Conference Male Sportsperson of the Year, the league announced.
The redshirt sophomore becomes the sixth Longhorn to win the men’s or women’s award, joining [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]Ahmard Hall (football) in 2004-05, Sam Acho (football, 2010-11), Kylie Doniak (soccer, 2011-12), Nate Boyer (football, 2012-13 and Imani McGee-Stafford (basketball, 2014-15).
“Our entire Texas Basketball family congratulates Andrew on this well-deserved honor,” Texas head coach Shaka Smart said in a statement released through the UT athletic department. “His courage, strength and resiliency have served as an inspiration to so many. It has been especially rewarding to see Andrew’s positive impact extend well beyond the basketball arena. What’s equally exciting is the fact that Andrew continues to grow and develop, both on and off the court. The best is yet to come.”
The Big 12 began the award in 2000-01 to recognize annually one male and one female student-athlete who displayed an extraordinary degree of sportsmanship, community service and academic achievement. The winners were selected by a media panel.
Jones was the Longhorns’ second-leading scorer, averaging 11.5 points per game in a 2019-20 season that ended prematurely because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But his biggest headlines came from his battle with leukemia. He was diagnosed in January 2018 and underwent successful treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He rejoined the team in 2018-19 but only played in two games as he continued his chemotherapy treatments throughout the year.
Jones announced his return in the 2019-20 season opener when he scored a then-career-high 20 points in the Longhorns’ 69-45 win over Northern Colorado.
His fast start was no anomaly. In addition to his scoring output, Jones, who played in all 31 UT games and started 11, also finished third on the team with 1.9 assists per game and third with 23 steals, and he connected on 62 of 162 three-pointers (38.3 percent) en route to being named Honorable Mention All-Big 12.
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