Duarte Named to Jerry West Award Top 10 List

EUGENE, Ore. – Senior guard Chris Duarte was named to the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award Top 10 list on Tuesday by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
 
Duarte, from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, is second in the Pac-12 in scoring at 18.4 points per game and leads the league in both steals at 2.5 per game and three-pointers made at 2.8 per game. He is ranked among the Pac-12's top 10 in eight different statistical categories. He was the only Pac-12 player among the Jerry West Award final 10.
 
The last five games for the Pac-12 player of the year candidate have been sublime. Duarte scored 20 points in four of those five games. During that span, he averaged 23.0 points 4.2 rebounds, 3.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game while hitting 57.7 percent from the field (41-of-71) and 50 percent from three-point range (19-of-38).
 
Duarte was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for the third time in his career on Jan. 4. He averaged 21.0 points per game on 50 percent shooting (15-of-30), including 47 percent from three-point range (9-of-19) in the Ducks' weekend sweep of California and Stanford. He also averaged 4.5 rebounds and 2.5 steals per game.
 
Duarte was at his best in the closing minutes of each game. He scored 14 of his 19 points in the final 5:18 to help the Ducks turn a three-point lead into a 13-point victory over the Golden Bears on Dec. 31. Jan. 2 versus Stanford, Duarte tallied 11 of team-high 23 points in the final 5:43 to turn a four-point cushion into a 17-point win.
 
Named after Class of 1980 Hall of Famer and 1959 NCAA Final Four Most Valuable Player Jerry West, the annual honor in its seventh year recognizes the top shooting guards in Division I men's college basketball. In late February, five finalists will be presented to West and the Hall of Fame's selection committee.
 
Previous winners of the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award include Myles Powell, Seton Hall (2020), RJ Barrett, Duke (2019), Carsen Edwards, Purdue (2018), Malik Monk, Kentucky (2017), Buddy Hield, Oklahoma (2016) and D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State (2015).
 
The winner of the 2021 Jerry West Award will be presented April 9, 2021, along with the other four members of the Men's Starting Five. One of those awards is the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award, which was won by Oregon's Payton Pritchard in 2020.
 
2021 Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award Top 10 Candidates
Ochai Agbaji                        Kansas
Joel Ayayi                            Gonzaga
James Bouknight                 Connecticut
Chris Duarte                       Oregon
Jordan Goodwin                  Saint Louis
Terry Taylor                          Austin Peay
MaCio Teague                     Baylor
Cameron Thomas               LSU
Franz Wagner                     Michigan
Joe Wieskamp                    Iowa
 
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