University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
Welsh Earns Pac-12 All-Academic Honors
March 24, 2016 | Men's Basketball
SAN FRANCISCO – UCLA sophomore Thomas Welsh has secured second-team Pac-12 All-Academic acclaim, the Pac-12 Conference announced on Thursday.
Welsh, a 7-foot center from Redondo Beach, Calif., averaged 11.2 points and a team-leading 8.5 rebounds per game in 2015-16. He finished the season with a team-best 10 double-doubles.
To be eligible for selection to the conference's all-academic team, a student-athlete must have a minimum 3.0 overall grade point average and be either a starter or a significant contributor.
With a declared major in economics, Welsh has been a three-time selection to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll during his first four academic quarters at UCLA (student-athletes with a 3.0 grade point average in an academic quarter earn honor roll recognition).
Welsh was one of five student-athletes to earn second-team accolades, along with California's Stephen Domingo, Oregon State's Malcolm Duvivier and Washington State's Valentine Izundu and Ny Redding. The five first-team selections included Oregon's Casey Benson, Stanford's Dorian Pickens, Utah's Brandon Taylor and Washington State's Josh Hawkinson and Junior Longrus.
In his second collegiate season, Welsh ranked third among all Pac-12 players in field goal percentage (59.0), behind Utah's Jakob Poeltl and California's Ivan Rabb. In addition, Welsh was seventh in the league in rebounding (8.6).
Welsh, a former standout at Loyola High School (Los Angeles), has become UCLA's first basketball player selected to the conference's all-academic team since 2010, when guard Mustafa Abdul-Hamid captured first-team honors and guard Malcolm Lee earned second-team acclaim. Welsh is the eighth player in school history to capture all-conference all-academic acclaim (along with Abdul-Hamid, Lee, Alfred Aboya, Ryan Wright, George Zidek, Richard Petruska and Dave Immel).
