Texas Tech men’s basketball players Christian Anderson and Donovan Atwell have received recognition from the Big 12 Conference for their performances last week. Anderson, a sophomore, was named Big 12 Player of the Week for the third time this season and also earned his fifth selection to the Big 12 Starting Five. He averaged 22.5 points, 7.0 assists, and 7.0 rebounds in two wins over Cincinnati and Iowa State.
Both Anderson and Atwell surpassed Texas Tech’s previous single-season record for three-pointers made, which was set by Cory Carr during the 1996-97 season with 94 makes. The two were included in this week’s Big 12 Starting Five alongside Arizona’s Brayden Burries, Baylor’s Cameron Carr, and Cincinnati’s Moustapha Thiam.
Arizona’s Brayden Burries was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week.
Anderson has now been selected as Big 12 Player of the Week three times this season, second only to teammate JT Toppin who received four honors before a season-ending injury. Last week, Anderson recorded his eighth double-double of the year with a career-high 31 points and 11 rebounds against Cincinnati, along with seven assists. In a road win over then-No.4 Iowa State, he added 14 points, seven assists, and three rebounds.
For the season, Anderson leads the conference with an average of 7.7 assists per game and is third nationally in that category. He ranks fifth in scoring within the conference at 19.4 points per game and is ninth nationally for made three-pointers per game (3.43). His current total of 96 made threes places him among national leaders while shooting at a rate of 43.2% from beyond the arc this season.
Anderson’s assist tally stands at 215 for the season—second most in program history—and he is approaching Elijah Hawkins’ single-season record of 226 assists for Texas Tech.
He is on both the Wooden Award and Naismith National Player of the Year late-season watch lists.
Atwell received his first Big 12 honor after making ten out of nineteen attempts from three-point range last week while averaging fifteen points per game. He scored twelve points against Cincinnati (four-for-nine on threes) before leading Texas Tech with eighteen points against Iowa State (six-for-ten on threes). Atwell currently leads all Big 12 players with one hundred ten made three-pointers this season—a figure that ranks third nationally—and he is second in Division I basketball for average made threes per game (3.79), shooting at a rate of forty-six percent from deep.
Atwell transferred to Texas Tech after playing three seasons at UNC Greensboro; he will be recognized during Senior Night when Texas Tech hosts TCU at United Supermarkets Arena on Tuesday evening.
This season Atwell averages thirteen point one points per game; across his college career he has scored twelve hundred seventy points and made three hundred twenty-one threes in one hundred twenty-three games.
