Duke men’s basketball freshman Jared McCain has been named to the Kyle Macy National Freshmen All-America Team and is a finalist for the Kyle Macy National Freshman of the Year Award, announced Tuesday by Collegeinsider.com.
McCain is one of 25 players on the All-America team and is one of five ACC players on the list, joined by fellow ACC members Markus Burton (Notre Dame), Elliot Cadeau (North Carolina), Carlton Carrington (Pittsburgh) and Baye Ndongo (Georgia Tech).
Duke has had five freshmen win the Kyle Macy Award since its inception in 2012, most recently by McCain’s teammate, Kyle Filipowski, following the 2022-23 season. The Blue Devils’ award-winners also include Jabari Parker (2014), Brandon Ingram (2016), Marvin Bagley III (2018) and Zion Williamson (2019). No other collegiate program has won the award more than twice.
A native of Sacramento, California, McCain scored the sixth-most points by a freshman in an ACC contest when he amassed a career-high 35 points in a road win at Florida State (Feb. 17), matching the Duke freshman scoring record set by Zion Williamson versus Syracuse on Jan. 14, 2019. His eight triples against the Seminoles broke Duke’s freshman record for 3-pointers made. After averaging 7.6 points per outing in the first eight games of the season, he reached the 20-point mark in seven of the last 23 regular-season games, averaging 15.7 points per contest during that stretch – second-most on the team. During the regular season, McCain was named ACC Rookie of the Week twice (Jan. 29, Feb. 19) and CBS Sports/USBWA Freshman of the Week (Dec. 26).
With the calendar flipping to March, McCain has scored in double-figures in all but two of Duke’s games, averaging 15.8 points per game in that stretch. The guard put his name all over the Duke NCAA Tournament record book with his performance against James Madison in the second round, scoring 30 points while drilling eight 3-pointers. His eight triples matched the overall Duke freshman record he had set earlier in the season and set a new Duke program record for triples made in an NCAA Tournament game. His 8-of-11 (.787) performance from deep was fifth-best by any Blue Devil in the tournament and second-best by a freshman, only trailing Trevon Duval’s 4-of-5 (.800) showing in 2018.
McCain finished the contest against James Madison without a giveaway, becoming the first freshman since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to score at least 30 points with zero turnovers. He also snagged five boards against the Dukes, joining Williamson as the only two freshmen in college basketball to record 30 points and grab five rebounds in an NCAA Tournament contest.
The award is named for a guard who starred as a freshman for Purdue. The 1975 Indiana Mr. Basketball, Kyle Macy played his freshman season at Purdue University, averaging 13.8 points per game. The recipient of the annual award is 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 2024 award will be announced in Phoenix, Arizona, site of the men’s Division I Basketball Championship.
