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Mickey Among Freshman of the Year Finalists

by Kent Lowe (@LSUkent)
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Mickey Among Freshman of the Year Finalists

BOSTON — LSU forward Jordan Mickey on Tuesday was announced as a finalist for the 2014 Kyle Macy National Freshman of the Year.

In addition, the list of finalists also comprises the 2013-14 Kyle Macy Freshmen All-America team.

The finalists besides Mickey of LSU include: Deandre Bembry (St. Joseph’s), Myles Davis (Xavier), James Daniel (Howard), Rodney Elliott (UMBC), Joel Embiid (Kansas), Tyler Ennis (Syracuse), Shannon Evans (Buffalo), Kahlil Felder (Oakland), Aaron Gordon (Arizona), Khallid Hart (Marist), Vincent Hunter (UTEP), Rysheed Jordan (St. John’s), Tim Kempton (Lehigh), E.C. Matthews (Rhode Island), Jabari Parker (Duke), London Perrantes (Virginia), Cameron Payne (Murray State), Bobby Portis (Arkansas), Julius Randle (Kentucky), Jonathan Starks (Tulane), Sindarius Thornwell (South Carolina), Noah Vonleh (Indiana), Paul Watson (Fresno), Andrew Wiggins (Kansas) and Marquis Wright (Siena).

The Kyle Macy award is presented annually to the top freshman in Division I college basketball. The 1975 Indiana “Mr. Basketball” played his freshman season at Purdue University. Macy averaged 13.8 points a game as a freshman, while leading the Boilermakers in free throws, shooting .859 percent from the line on the season. He started in 25 of 27 games, helping them to a 16-11 season record.

After playing his freshman year at Purdue, Macy transferred to the University of Kentucky in 1976. He started every game for the Wildcats in 1977. A three-time All-America and three-time All-SEC player, Macy was a member of Kentucky’s 1978 National Championship team. In his senior year of 1979-80, he became the first Kentucky player ever to be named consensus Southeastern Conference Player of the Year.

Mickey earned a spot on the Coaches and AP All-SEC second team and was named to the Coaches Defensive and Freshman All-SEC teams after averaging 12.7 points per game, 7.9 rebounds a contest (4th in the league) with a 53.3 percent field goal percentage (171-321, second in the league) and becoming the second player in LSU history to block 100 shots in a season (106).

The Dallas native led the league in block shot average at 3.1 a contest.

The winner of the 2014 Macy award will be announced at the CollegeInsider.com Awards Banquet on April 4 in Dallas, site of the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.