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Baylor Basketball

MaCio Teague Named West Award Finalist

February 23, 2021
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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Baylor senior guard MaCio Teague has been selected as one of five finalists for the 2021 Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award, as announced Tuesday by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The annual honor, named after Class of 1980 Hall of Famer Jerry West, is now in its seventh season recognizing the top shooting guards in Division I college basketball.

The five finalists for the Jerry West Award are Teague, Gonzaga’s Joel Ayayi, Houston’s Quentin Grimes, Iowa’s Joe Wieskamp and Oregon’s Chris Duarte.

A Cincinnati, Ohio, native, Teague is averaging 14.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 30.4 minutes per game. He’s helped the Bears match the best start in program history at 17-0, including 9-0 in Big 12 Conference play and a 4-0 record against top-25 ranked teams.

Among the five finalists, Teague ranks first in career points (1,717), points per game (15.3), assists (253), steals (132), 3-pointers made (255), free throws made (255) and free throw percentage (.866), and he ranks second in rebounds (496) and 3-point percentage (.406).

Teague has earned all-conference recognition in each of his first three collegiate seasons. He was first-team All-Big South in 2017 and 2018 and earned second-team All-Big 12 honors in 2020. 

Baylor has gone 43-4 since Teague joined the starting lineup at the start of the 2019-20 season. The Bears have the Big 12’s best record in that span at 24-3, and they’ve gone 10-1 against ranked teams with Teague in the lineup, becoming the first team since Indiana in 1974-76 to win 10 of 11 games against ranked opponents.

Teague aims to become the second player in program history to win a national individual award, following Johnathan Motley’s 2017 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year honor. With Jared Butler’s selection as a Bob Cousy Award finalist on Monday, Teague and Butler give the Bears two national individual award finalists in the same season for the first time in program history.

A national committee of top college basketball personnel determined the watch list of 20 student-athletes in November, which was narrowed to 10 candidates in January and now just five finalists. This month, the finalists will be presented to Mr. West and the Hall of Fame’s selection committee.

The winner of the 2021 Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award will be determined by a combination of fan votes and input from the Basketball Hall of Fame’s selection committee. Naismith Starting Five Fan Voting presented by Dell Technologies will go live Friday, February 26, on hoophallawards.com. The winner of the 2021 Jerry West Award will be presented on ESPN, along with the other four members of the Men’s Naismith Starting Five.

The Bears have three remaining regular-season games scheduled, with the first two at home against Iowa State (Tuesday) and West Virginia (Thursday), followed by a third on the road at Kansas (Saturday). The Big 12 Conference is working with teams to reschedule additional games which have been postponed during the week of March 1-7.

Follow @BaylorMBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for updates throughout the year.

2021 JERRY WEST AWARD FINALISTS

MaCio Teague, Baylor

Joel Ayayi, Gonzaga

Quentin Grimes, Houston

Joe Wieskamp, Iowa

Chris Duarte, Oregon

 
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