NEW YORK – Georgetown University senior center Jessie Govan (Queens Village, N.Y. / Wings Academy) was a unanimous selection to the Preseason All-BIG EAST First Team as announced by the league on Thursday at its annual media day held at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Hoyas were selected to finish seventh in the coaches poll tallying 33 points.
 
Of the five-man All-BIG EAST First Team, Govan was one of four unanimous selections along with Butler's Kamar Baldwin, Marquette's Markus Howard and Villanova's Eric Pashcall. Joining the foursome was Providence's Alpha Diallo.
 
Last week, Govan was announced as one of 20 men's basketball players selected to the watch list for the 2019 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award, as announced by the Naismith Hall of Fame. Named after Hall of Famer and three-time NCAA Champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the annual honor is in its fifth year of recognizing the top centers in men's college basketball.  The watch list of 20 candidates was determined by a national committee comprised of top college basketball personnel.
 
During the 2018-19 campaign, Govan started all 30 games and led the team with 17.9 points per game and 10.0 rebounds per game while shooting 50.8 percent from the field. He is the only returning BIG EAST player to average a double-double last season and he's the first Hoya to accomplish the feat since Mike Sweetney in 2002-03 (17.8, 10.4). He scored his 1,000th point vs. Providence on February 24, 2018 and grabbed his 500th career rebound against St. John's on January 20, 2018.
 
The Blue & Gray was picked to finish seventh in the league after closing last season with a 15-15 overall record. Georgetown earned a trio of postseason honors in 2017-18, including a pair of BIG EAST All-Freshman honorees Jamorko Pickett (Washington, D.C. / Massanutten Military Academy [Va.]) and Jahvon Blair (Brampton, Ont. / Athlete Institute Prep).
 
The league's media day came one day after the BIG EAST and Big 12 Conferences announced the creation of a nonconference scheduling series for four seasons, beginning in 2019-20 and continuing through 2022-23.  Ten games between the two leagues will be played each season during the month of December. The yet unnamed series will be played in the local markets of the home teams.  An equal number of games shall be played in each conference's home market each year -- five for the BIG EAST and five for the Big 12.  The home school will have the right to determine the venue of its game. The complete slate for the first year will be announced in spring 2019.