Florida's Chinyelu: SEC's Defensive Player & Scholar-Athlete

0:00On March 9th, Fordah Center, Ruben Chinilu are in major SEC honors this week. The league named him, defensive player of the year and scholar athlete of the year. He also landed on the all defensive team and all SEC second team after a standout junior season. His stats tell the story with 11.4 points, 11.7 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game. At 6 foot 10 and 265 pounds, Chinilu leaves the conference in rebounding and anchors both ends for Florida. Coming from Nigeria, he spent one year at Washington State before transferring to Gainesville. Last season, he started all 40 games and boosted his numbers. This year, he nearly doubled his production across the board. The Scholar Athlete Award nods to his success off the court, where his faith guided big decisions like picking Florida and Jersey number 9. It's all added up to a breakout year. Florida heads into the SEC tournament with the league's best record at 25 wins and 6 losses overall.

1:02They tip off Friday, March 13th at 1pm. Eastern time, opponents still to come, setting up another deep run.