On Tuesday afternoon, the National Association of Basketball Coaches announced WKU Basketball junior center Charles Bassey was named to the NABC All-District First-Team while senior guard Taveion Hollingsworth was named to the second team. The teams were selected by NABC-member head coaches in NCAA Division I. 

NABC Districts are organized by conference. Conference USA is designated as the 11th District.

This is the second honor of the kind for both Hilltoppers as Bassey first earned the accolade in 2018-19 and Hollingsworth earned his first in 2019-20. 

Under head coach Rick Stansbury, at least one Hilltopper has earned first or second team recognition in each of his five years at the helm. Forward Justin Johnson (2016-17 second team, 2017-18 first team), Darius Thompson (2017-18 second team) and Jared Savage (2019-20 second team) join the duo as NABC All-District honorees.

Since 1949-50, WKU Basketball has had 46 NABC honorees in its history. Hollingsworth and Bassey are part of a 16-member club of Hilltoppers that have been honored more than once including Courtney Lee and Jim McDaniels who were both honored three times. 

Hollingsworth is averaging 13.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. He leads the nation in consecutive games started at 129. Bassey is shooting 60.2% from the field while averaging a double-double of 17.7 points and 11.5 rebounds. 

Bassey was also named an Associated Press All-America Honorable Mention on Tuesday, the program’s first since Orlando Mendez-Valdez in 2009.

He’s been named to the Wooden Award National Ballot for National Player of the Year and All-American consideration. He’s also a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist and one of five Kareem Abdul Jabbar Center of the Year finalists.

{{tncms-inline account=”WKU Hilltopper Basketball” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The accolades keep coming!Congrats to <a href="https://twitter.com/CB_ONES23?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CB_ONES23</a> on being named WKU's first <a href="https://twitter.com/AP_Top25?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AP_Top25</a> All-America Honorable Mention since Orlando Mendez-Valdez in 2009! More honors still to come!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoTops?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GoTops</a> <a href="https://t.co/R72h6eEXxV">pic.twitter.com/R72h6eEXxV</a></p>— WKU Hilltopper Basketball (@WKUBasketball) <a href="https://twitter.com/WKUBasketball/status/1371860877419372548?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2021</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/WKUBasketball/status/1371860877419372548″ type=”twitter”}}

Men’s basketball beat reporter Kaden Gaylord can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Kaden on Twitter at @_KLG3.