Daenan Gyimah Wins Millar Award
April 26, 2018 | Men's Volleyball
Off the Block announced Thursday that a nationwide voting committee had selected UCLA's sophomore middle blocker Daenan Gyimah as the recipient of the 2018 Ryan Millar Award. The Ryan Millar Award, which is named after the former BYU All-American and U.S. Olympian, is presented to the nation's best middle attacker in NCAA Division I-II men's volleyball during the regular season.
Gyimah led the nation with a .535 attack percentage and had seven regular season matches with double-digit kills while hitting at least .500. In addition, he contributed a season-high 17 kills on a .889 attack percentage (best mark in the nation this season) in a victory against Pepperdine in March that helped UCLA finish in second place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and earn an at-large berth to the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Gyimah also had a career-high 41 aces and was in the top 10 of the MPSF averaging 0.37 aces per game. He was third in the nation with a 1.22 blocks per game average and had an MPSF-best 135 blocks.
A voting committee of about 25 men's volleyball coaches and volleyball media members from around the nation determined the winner of the Ryan Millar Award. The top three vote-getters were named finalists for the award. This is the third year that Off the Block has presented the Ryan Millar Award. Previous winners of the award are former Stanford middle attacker Conrad Kaminski in 2016 and former Long Beach State middle attacker Amir Lugo-Rodriguez in 2017.
Gyimah and the Bruins were awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA MVB Championship and will play in an Opening Round match on Tuesday, May 1 in Pauley Pavilion against Harvard, the champion of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, at 7:30 p.m. In the first NCAA match on Tuesday, UC Irvine will square off against the winner of this evening's King at Ohio State match at 5 p.m. in Pauley. The NCAA semifinals, on May 3 (5 and 7:30 p.m.), and the championship match, which will be on Saturday, May 5 at 4 p.m., will also be held in Pauley Pavilion.
