Henri Veesaar honored by Big 12 for recent play as Arizona’s bench continues to produce

Potential Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year?

Arizona’s bench has been its superpower this season, and Henri Veesaar has been at the forefront of that reserve production. The 7-footer had 17 points in 21 minutes in Tuesday’s win at BYU, that coming on the heels of him scoring all 11 of his points in the second half at ASU.

Those performances earned him a share of the Big 12’s Bench Performance of the Week recognition, an award he shared with Oklahoma State forward Marchelus Avery.

Veesaar, a redshirt sophomore who sat out last season while recovering from an elbow injury, is making a case for Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year. He’s averaging 8.1 points and 4.6 rebounds for the season, but in conference play those numbers climb to 10.1 and 5.2 on 63.6 percent shooting in conference games.

Only Avery (12.2) is averaging more in Big 12 play among players who have started less than half their team’s conference games. Right on Veesaar’s heels is teammate KJ Lewis, who is averaging 10.0 per game and has also established himself as Arizona’s defensive stopper off the bench.

Throw in freshman wing Carter Bryant, who is averaging 8.0 points and shooting 58.2 percent (48.3 percent from 3) in league play, and it’s easy to see why the Wildcats are 10-1 and tied for first place.

Arizona’s bench is averaging 27.8 points per game in Big 12 play, scoring at least 25 in all but one game (the 70-54 loss at Texas Tech). Backups have 13 of the Wildcats’ 36 double-digit scoring performances during conference play, with Lewis and Veesaar reaching that figure five times apiece.

For the season, Veesaar has Arizona’s best plus-minus at +238, while Bryant (+197) and Lewis (+196) rank fourth and fifth, respectively. Tobe Awaka, Trey Townsend and Anthony Dell’Orso remain the starters, but all eight guys Tommy Lloyd regularly uses are averaging more than 19 minutes per game.

And during the current 5-game win streak, the three backups are playing more than the starters. Arizona’s most common lineup in that stretch has been guards Jaden Bradley and Caleb Love along with Lewis, Bryant and Veesaar, a quintet that has been on the court together 27.9 percent of the time.

The starting 5 (Bradley/Love/Dell’Orso/Townsend/Awaka) has played together 15 percent, or six minutes per game. Basically the opening few minutes of each half, after which Lloyd starts to mix and match. That’s led to Lewis playing the 3 and Bryant the 4 on 58 and 53 percent of possessions, respectively, with Awaka and Veesaar almost even in time at the 5.