Eric Dixon Misses Out On Big East Player of the Year Award

He leads the country in points per game, but that wasn’t enough for Villanova forward Eric Dixon to take home Big East Player of the Year honors.

The 24 year old power forward put up 23.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game, climbing into third place on the Wildcats’ all-time scoring leaderboard — with an excellent chance of claiming the top spot before Villanova’s Big East Tournament run ends — but lost out on recognition as the top player in his conference. St. John’s wing RJ Luis Jr. took home the honors after posting 18.1 points, 7.1 boards and 2.2 assists per game on a Red Storm team that finished the regular season as the top seed in the conference.

The conference’s 11 head coaches voted on the award, and coaches couldn’t vote for their own players. The Big East didn’t release the exact voting tabulation, so it’s impossible to say just how close Dixon came to winning the award. As he, Luis, Marquette’s Kam Jones and Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner all earned unanimous selections to the All-Big East First Team, the votes probably came down to the wire.

Eric Dixon remains in the running for a bevy of other awards, including national honors like the Karl Malone Award (for the nation’s best power forward) and the Wooden, Naismith and Oscar Robertson Awards, given annually to the most outstanding player in the nation.