FIU’s Dean named Conference USA men’s basketball Freshman of the Year
Robert Doctor, who coached Arturo Dean for three years at South Miami High, had a message for FIU upon his recruitment.
“Whomever you have at point guard,” Doctor told FIU coach Jeremy Ballard, “he’s in trouble.”
Translation: Dean was going to take his job.
On Tuesday, Doctor was proven more than correct. Not only did Dean win the starting job, he also took home the trophy for Conference USA Freshman of the Year.
Dean, who ranks fifth nationally with 76 steals, is the first FIU player to win C-USA Freshman of the Year since the Panthers joined the league in 2013.
While his scoring average of 11.6 is not overly impressive, Dean leads FIU in assists (3.7), and, despite being relatively short at 5-11, he is first on the Panthers in total rebounds (126).
Dean, who also made C-USA first-team All-Defense, wasn’t FIU’s only award-winner on Tuesday.
Denver Jones, a 6-4 shooting guard from Alabama, was named first-team All C-USA. He finished second in the league in scoring average (20.0), field-goal percentage (48.1) and foul shooting (85.5). In addition, he is one of only 26 Division I players nationally to average at least 20 points per game this season.
FIU also placed Dashon Gittens on the All-Freshman team, along with Dean. Gittens, a 6-3 guard from Connecticut, averaged 7.0 points and shot 35.3 percent on 3-pointers.
But the big award – for the local prep scene at least – belonged to Dean.
“Arturo is a super competitor,” Doctor said. “He’s very intelligent, super athletic and determined to be great. I knew he was going to outwork everybody.”
Dean is one of just two players on the FIU roster from Miami-Dade or Broward counties. – the other is walk-on Jaden Grant of Davie. The Miami Hurricanes have no players who list a South Florida city as their hometown, although Norchad Omier played at Miami Prep.
“Hopefully,” Doctor said, “Arturo will pave the way for more local kids to be signed by FIU and Miami.”
Dean and the rest of the seventh-seeded FIU Panthers (14-17, 8-12) will hope to extend their season on Wednesday at 9 p.m. as they open play against 10th-seeded Louisiana Tech (14-17, 7-13) in the C-USA postseason tournament at Frisco, Texas.
The teams split two regular-season meetings.