Kris Dunn Named Associated Press Preseason First Team All-American

Getting love from CBS Sports and NBC Sports and even Blue Ribbon College Yearbook is really nice for Kris Dunn. It gives Dunn and Providence time in the national spotlight and gets people all across the basketball world talking about Dunn and the Friars. The Associated Press All-American Team is a different ballgame.

The AP All-American team is one of four recognized All-American teams that the NCAA officially deems to be the ones that make up the consensus and the 2015-16 preseason AP All-American team includes Mr. Dunn. That’s big time for Dunn. Dunn is the first Friar to be on an AP First Team since Ryan Gomes did it in 2004. Gomes was the first Friar to be on the AP’s First Team since Marvin Barnes made the team in 1974. The only other Friar to be an AP First Teamer is Jimmy Walker. That’s pretty rarefied air in Friartown. Dunn will have to live up to the hype if he wants to join these Providence College legends on the postseason First Team, but being on the preseason one is a good start.

Dunn was an Honorable Mention All-American for the AP a season ago and had made the jump — comfortably based on the voting — to the First Team in the preseason. He is joined on the First Team by Kyle Wiltjer (Gonzaga), Georges Niang (Iowa State), Buddy Hield (Oklahoma) and Ben Simmons (LSU). Wiltjer was the leading vote-getter with 51 votes out of the 65 press members that voted. Dunn got the third-most votes with 43. Simmons narrowly beat out Maryland’s Melo Trimble by a single vote — 27 to 26 — to become the only freshman on this year’s First Team and just the fourth freshman to ever be on the team.

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Mike Hopkins

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