BATON ROUGE, La. (LSUSports.net) – LSU standout Cameron Thomas, a Chesapeake product who played at Oscar Smith High School before transferring to Oak Hill Academy, became the first player since former LSU standout Ben Simmons in 2016 to claim both Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year honors in the state of Louisiana.
Thomas led both LSU and all NCAA Division I freshmen in scoring with a 22.6 average while being named first-team All-SEC. The USA Today Second Team All-American posted the fourth-highest scoring average by a first-year player in school history following Pete Maravich (1968), Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (1989) and Bob Pettit (1952). Thomas averaged 23.1 points per game in SEC play and had 21 games with 20 or more points – the most of any LSU player since Shaquille O'Neal in 1992. Thomas' 16 games with 25-plus points were the most by any SEC freshman in the One-and-Done era (since 2006) and he converted on 88 percent of his free throws (176-for-200), including a school-record 42 consecutive makes.
