AAC Basketball: 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

14. Dedric Lawson

Lawson was an impressive young talent, a 6’9 forward from Memphis who started off his college career in his hometown. He was a Top 40 recruit brought aboard by Josh Pastner who decided to stay after Tubby Smith took over the program in 2016. However, Lawson would sit out a year and depart for Kansas, though his two years with the Tigers are more than enough to warrant inclusion today.

Right off the bat, Lawson was a major weapon, averaging 15.8 points and 9.3 rebounds in Pastner’s final year with the program. He actually had 22 points and 15 rebounds in just his second career game against Oklahoma. Year two was even more impressive, with Lawson averaging 19.2 points and 9.9 rebounds a game, helping the Tigers to a second-straight 19-win campaign. He didn’t play in the Big Dance while at Memphis but did score a career-high 35 points in a win over Iowa that year.

Lawson was unsurprisingly named AAC Rookie of the Year and earned All-AAC First Team honors in his second season on campus. He was the best interior shooter and rebounder in the conference for those two seasons, also finishing among the league leaders in blocks, field goal percentage, and other efficiency metrics. He was even more dynamic two years later at Kansas, but he was already a phenomenal player just looking at his time in the AAC.