Young basketball player Sandro Mamukelashvili named US Big East Conference Player of the Year
Sandro Mamukelashvili is a Seton Hall forward in the club's 2020-21 season Seniors line-up. Photo via Seton Hall Pirates.
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Young Georgian-American athlete Sandro Mamukelashvili has been named Player of the Year by the Big East Conference of the American college basketball.
Mamukelashvili, 21, is one of three players to receive the honour, the results of which were announced on Wednesday and follow a season in which he scored more than 20 points on 12 occasions, including two fixtures where he earned his team 30 points or more.
Playng for Seton Hall Pirates, the young forward displayed other impressive stats in the season, becoming the first player of the club to record multiple 30-point matches since the 1993-94 season.
Mamukelashvili <...> is one of only two players in the BIG EAST Conference to rank in the league's top-15 in scoring, rebounding and assists, both overall and in conference games only."
- Seton Hall Pirates
We are ecstatic that our guy @Mamukelashvili5 has been named @BIGEASTMBB Player of the Year! ????
— Seton Hall Men's Basketball (@SetonHallMBB) March 10, 2021
That’s back-to-back Player of the Year honors for the program! #HALLin ????⚪️ pic.twitter.com/VaoFAhXL7w
His efforts helped the club to a top-four finish in the Big East Conference, a league that is part of the United States' National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. Seton Hall called the Georgian's award "an unprecedented feat" in their reaction.
Recognition for Mamukelashvili's performances has included his inclusion as a finalist for the 2021 Karl Malone National Power Forward of the Year Award and a nomination for the Haggerty Metropolitan Player of the Year Award.
Born in New York, the forward competed for the Pirates as a Freshman in the 2017-18 season, was promoted to a Sophomore in the subsequent year, with the status of a Junior in 2019-20 and a Senior in the current season.
Mamukelashvili, who was Raised in Tbilisi, is the son of Ira Gabashvili, former captain of the Soviet Union women's national basketball team. He spent some of his teenage years competing for school teams in U17, U18 and U19 categories in Italy before moving to the US in 2016.
In the States Mamukelashvili was mentored by fellow Georgian player and National Basketball Association veteran Zaza Pachulia while at the Montverde Academy. He also played for the Georgian national basketball team at the 2019 FIBA World Cup qualifiers and for the country's U20 team at the FIBA U20 European Championship.