Garza named AP First-Team All-American
Garza becomes only the third player in program history to be voted to the first team by the Associated Press.
Iowa’s Luka Garza dunks the ball during a game against Kennesaw State University at Carver Hawkeye Arena on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. The Hawkeyes defeated the Owls, 93-51. (Emily Wangen/The Daily Iowan)
March 20, 2020
Iowa junior Luka Garza has been named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press, earning 63 first-team votes from the 65-person voting panel.
Garza is just the third Hawkeye men’s basketball player, and the first in nearly seven decades, to be voted first-team All-America by the Associated Press. The AP is one of four outlets used by the NCAA to determine its consensus All-America teams (AP, National Association of Basketball Coaches, United States Basketball Writers Association, and Sporting News).
Garza was named to the first-team All-America squad by Sporting News last week with the USBWA and the NABC expected to make their announcements next week.
The Washington, D.C., native joins Murray Wier (1948) and Charles Darling (1952) as the only Hawkeye players named to the AP All-American First Team.
Six major news outlets have already named Garza as its national player of the year. Garza is the first Iowa men’s basketball player to earn player of the year distcintion.
Garza averaged 26.7 points, 11.1 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks in 12 games against AP ranked opponents in 2019-20, including recording 11 straight 20-point performances, the longest streak by any player since UConn’s Kemba Walker in 2011.
The Big Ten Player of the Year finished the 20-game conference schedule averaging 26.2 points per game, becoming the first player to average at least 26 points in Big Ten play since Purdue’s Glenn Robinson in 1994. Garza scored a school-record 740 points this season, breaking the program’s 50-year old scoring record previously set by John Johnson in 1970.