Hamilton, James Lead East Team

Richard Hamilton of Connecticut and Tim James of Miami were the only unanimous selections to the all-Big East first team Monday and both were repeat choices from last season.

Hamilton, the conference player of the year last season as a sophomore, was second in the league in scoring this season at 21.3 points per game. The 6-foot-6 forward led the Huskies, who were ranked No. 1 in the country for 10 weeks this season, to a 25-2 record and their fifth regular-season title in the last six seasons.

James, a 6-7 senior forward, finished third in scoring at 18.9 points and was third rebounding at 8.3, He led the Hurricanes to their best season since joining the conference in 1991-92, a 15-3 mark that was one game behind Connecticut.

The rest of the first team, which was selected by the league's coaches, was: Miami junior guard Johnny Hemsley, Providence senior forward Jamel Thomas and St. John's sophomore swingman Ron Artest.

Hemsley averaged 17.4 points this season, while Thomas led the league at 22.1. Artest averaged 14.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 2.0 steals.

Juniors Bootsy Thornton of St. John's, Etan Thomas of Syracuse and Marcus Goree of West Virginia were on the second team along with sophomore Khalid El-Amin of Connecticut and freshman Troy Murphy of Notre Dame.

The third team had four seniors -- Vonteego Cummings and Isaac Hawkins of Pittsburgh, Rob Hodgson of Rutgers and John Celestand of Villanova, along with junior Jason Hart of Syracuse.

Murphy and Erick Barkley of St. John's were the only unanimous selections to the all-rookie team and were joined by Kevin Braswell and Anthony Perry of Georgetown and Dahntay Jones of Rutgers.

The conference player and coach of the year will bannounced Tuesday.

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