KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Two members of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team earned finalist status for CollegeInsider.com national honors, as announced Wednesday afternoon.
Freshman forward Nate Ament is among 25 finalists for the Kyle Macy Award, given annually to the premier freshman in the nation. Senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie one of 25 finalists for the Lute Olson Award, which is presented annually to the top player in the country.
Ament joined Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr., as the SEC’s representatives in the Kyle Macy Award finalist group. They have the two most weekly honors by a freshman in SEC history, with seven and eight, respectively.
Gillespie and Acuff are two of five SEC competitors who made the cut for the Lute Olson Award list, alongside Florida’s Thomas Haugh, Alabama’s Labaron Philon Jr., and Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner. Those five individuals were also the First Team All-SEC selections by the league’s coaches.
Ament was named a Second Team All-SEC designee by both the league’s coaches and the AP. He is a finalist for the Julius Erving Award, presented to the best small forward in the country, as well as a member of the Wayman Tisdale Award Midseason Watch List.
The 6-foot-10, 207-pounder out of Manassas, Va., put up 17.4 points, a team-high 6.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.0 steal per game during the regular season. He was at his best in conference action, notching 19.0 points per contest, with seven 20-point showings in a 10-game span.
Gillespie, the Associated Press SEC Newcomer of the Year, averaged 18.0 points, 5.6 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 2.1 steals in 34.3 minutes per game during the regular season. He led the Volunteers in scoring, assists, steals and minutes, with the latter three marks also placing second in the SEC.
A 6-foot-1, 188-pounder from Greeneville, Tenn., Gillespie is on the Naismith Trophy Late Season Team, alongside Ament. He has scored at least eight points in every game this year, with double figures in 29 of them, 20-plus in 12 and 32-plus in two.
The Lute Olson Award is named in honor of the late seven-time Pac-10 Coach of the Year who led Arizona to 11 Pac-10 titles, 23 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, four Final Four appearances and the 1997 national title. He entered the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, as well as the College Basketball Hall of Fame in both 2006 and 2019.
The Kyle Macy Award is named for a guard who starred as a freshman for Purdue, averaging 13.8 points per game and shooting 85.9 percent at the line. The 1975 Indiana Mr. Basketball, he played his freshman season for the Boilermakers and then transferred to Kentucky, where he was a three-time All-American and the 1979-80 SEC Player of the Year.
The recipients of both annual awards are determined by a 10-member voting committee, which consists of current and former head coaches, as well as two senior staff members of CollegeInsider.com. The winners will be announced in April in Indianapolis, the site of the Final Four.
