SEC names Players of the Week following 3 incredible individual performances on Saturday

The Southeastern Conference has announced its Players of the Week for Week 16 following another chaotic Saturday of action across the league on the hardwood.

Leading off as Player of the Week is Arkansas’ Khalif Battle. Amid a tough season for the program, Battle provided at least one electric Saturday afternoon in Bud Walton Arena as Arkansas beat Missouri. He was a man on a mission, finishing the win with 42 points and on just 15 total shot attempts.

That total is currently the second-most points ever scored by a Razorback in an SEC game, and the highest in over 30 years, falling just one point short of the record in an SEC game set by Todd Day at 43 points back in 1992. Battle also recorded a top-10 scoring performance in the history of the program as well, with those 42 points ranking seventh on the all-time single-game scoring list for Arkansas.

As wildly efficient as that outing from Battle was, Kentucky’s Justin Edwards was actually perfect vs. Alabama en route to winning SEC Co-Freshman of the Week, becoming the SIXTH Kentucky player to win Freshman of the Week awards this season alongside DJ Wagner, Robert Dillingham, Reed Sheppard, Aaron Bradshaw and Zvonimir Ivisic.

Going back to Saturday, Edwards knocked down all 10 of his shot attempts, including four 3-pointers, to rack up a season-high 28 points in a breakthrough afternoon for the former blue-chip recruit. A starter all year despite some heavy struggles and a slide down the rotation, Edwards finally exploded to look just as dangerous as any of those other five rookies.

The other Co-Freshman of the Week was Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard, who himself is quite familiar with the award at this point in the season. He only scored five points in the win over Ole Miss, but bounced back to lead a win in Baton Rouge over LSU with 32 points and six made 3s.

For Hubbard, his outing against the Tigers marked a season-high as well, just eclipsing the 29 points he in the Bulldogs’ marquee non-conference victory over Northwestern on a neutral court. Of course, that performance also led to Hubbard taking home SEC Freshman of the Week.

There was perhaps an expectation that Hubbard would take a bit of a smaller role scoring the ball once Tolu Smith came back, but that hasn’t been the case. Even though Smith is scoring over 16 points a game and seamlessly transitioned back onto the court, Hubbard has only maintained — in fact, increased slightly — his own output. MSU has a pretty lethal 1-2 combo these days.