Keisei Tominaga, Rienk Mast named All-Big Ten

The Nebraska basketball team is in the midst of a special season, and on Tuesday a couple of its standout players were honored by the Big Ten along with their head coach.

The day got started with Fred Hoiberg being named the Big Ten Co-Head Coach of the Year. He shared the honor with Purdue's Matt Painter.

Hoiberg has guided the Huskers to a 22-9 overall record with a 12-8 mark in conference play. The Huskers, who were picked to finish 12th in the preseason, enter this week's Big Ten Tournament as the 3 seed and are near locks to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years.

As for the players, Keisei Tominaga and Rienk Mast earned All-Big Ten honors. It's the first time in the Big Ten era that Nebraska has had multiple players on the top three teams of all-conference voting. The last time that happened was in 1998-99 when Big 12 Player of the Year Venson Hamilton was a first-team pick and Cookie Belcher was third team.

Tominaga, the sharpshooter from Japan, was selected second-team all-conference by the coaches and third team by the media. Tominaga is averaging 14.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists this season. One of the dangerous 3-point threats in the country, he's shooting 46.3% from the field, 87.8% at the free-throw line and 37.1% from deep.

"He's going to go down as one of the all-time favorites, I think, to wear a Husker uniform," Hoiberg said a couple weeks ago. "It's been really fun to see, it's been fun to witness, it's been fun to coach him. He's going to go down as one of my all-time favorites that I've had the opportunity to be with and coach through a lot of ups and downs."

Mast, in his first season at Nebraska after transferring in from Bradley, was selected third-team all-conference by the coaches and honorable mention by the media. A native of the Netherlands, Mast is averaging 12.7 points and team-highs in rebounds (7.8) and assists (3.0).

"I think everybody sees that Rienk is one of the better facilitators as a frontcourt player in not only in the league, but in the country," Hoiberg said. "And he's leading us in assists, just like Derrick Walker did a year ago, just like Royce White did back at Iowa state, like Georges Niang did when we had them playing that trail spot the spread offense."

Josiah Allick was also honored. The Lincoln native was named Nebraska's sportsmanship honoree. Allick, who's averaging 7.1 points and 5.1 rebounds, is active in the Huskers’ Life Skills program and has been a leader for one of the most successful teams in program history.

"The energy that he brings, the passion that he brings to the floor in practice, in shoot-around, when he comes in and does individual work. He just does everything with force," Hoiberg said, "and he's had some really, really good moments for us."

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