Sandro Mamukelashvili Named a Finalist for the 2021 Karl Malone Award

Springfield, Mass. - Senior Sandro Mamukelashvili (Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia) of the Seton Hall men's basketball team has been named one of five finalists for the 2021 Karl Malone Award, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Thursday. Named after Class of 2010 Hall of Famer and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Karl Malone, the annual honor in its seventh year recognizes the top power forwards in Division I men's college basketball.

Mamukelashvili is joined on the list by Drew Timme of Gonzaga, Trayce Jackson-Davis of Indiana, Justin Champagnie of Pittsburgh and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl of Villanova.

This is the fourth time that a Seton Hall Pirate has been named a finalist for one of Naismith Starting Five National Player of the Year Awards. Angel Delgado was twice a finalist for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award and was named the National Center of the Year in 2018. Myles Powell was a finalist and went on to win the 2020 Jerry West National Shooting Guard of the Year Award.

A national committee of top college basketball personnel determined the watch list of 20 student-athletes in November, which was narrowed to 10 candidates in January and now just five finalists. This month, the finalists will be presented to Mr. Malone and the Hall of Fame's selection committee. The winner of the 2021 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award will be determined by a combination of fan votes and input from the Basketball Hall of Fame's selection committee. Naismith Starting Five Fan Voting presented by Dell Technologies will go live on Friday, February 26 on hoophallawards.com.

Mamukelashvili, also a candidate for BIG EAST Player of the Year and the Haggerty Award Met Player of the Year, has been enjoying a great season in leading the Pirates to another double-digit winning season in the BIG EAST Conference. He is one of only two players in the BIG EAST to rank in the conference's top 15 in scoring (2nd, 17.8 PPG), rebounding (8th, 7.1 RPG) and assists (13th, 3.1 APG).

One of the most versatile players in all of college basketball, Mamukelashvili has helped the Pirate win games both with his scoring and with his passing abilities. He has a pair of 30-point efforts, scoring 30 at Penn State and 32 vs. St. John's, becoming the first power forward at Seton Hall to record multiple 30-point games since Arturas Karnisovas in 1993-94. He also has seven games of four assists or more, including seven big ones in a win at Marquette.

Earlier this month, Mamukelashvili became just the 45th Pirate in program history to reach the 1,000 career points milestone. Reaching 1,000 is a strong accomplishment for someone who only scored 87 points his freshman season, missed 10 games of his junior season due to injury and lost more games due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The winner of the 2021 Karl Malone Award will be presented on ESPN, along with the other four members of the Naismith Starting Five. Additional awards being presented include the Bob Cousy Point Guard Award, the Jerry West Shooting Guard Award, the Julius Erving Small Forward Award and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center Award, in addition to the Women's Starting Five. Additional information about the award presentation, including date and time, will be released in the coming weeks.