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HOOPS Ndongo named All-ACC Third Team, George Honorable Mention...

Alex Farrer

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Along with Ndongo and George, Duncan Powell got the second most votes for Sixth Man of The Year and George got the fourth most votes for Most Improved Player.


Full release rrom The ACC

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (theACC.com) – Duke freshman guard/forward Cooper Flagg has been voted the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year, highlighting the 2024-25 All-ACC Men’s Basketball Team and award winners, which were announced Monday, March 10, by the conference office.

The 2024-25 All-ACC Team was determined by an 81-member panel consisting of the league’s 18 head coaches and 63 members of the media.

Louisville senior guard Chucky Hepburn claimed ACC Defensive Player of the Year laurels, while his coach, Pat Kelsey, was tabbed ACC Coach of the Year. Boston College’s Donald Hand Jr. notched the ACC’s Most Improved Player award and California’s Jeremiah Wilkinson was picked as the Sixth Man of the Year.

Flagg was the overwhelming pick from the voting panel as Player of the Year, earning the nod on 75 of 81 ballots. He joins former Duke standouts Jahlil Okafor (2015), Marvin Bagley III (2018) and Zion Williamson (2019) as the only players in ACC history to be chosen as the league’s Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season.

Flagg ranks among the ACC’s top 10 this season in points (third, 19.4/game), rebounds (eighth, 7.6), assists (eighth, 4.2), steals (10th, 1.5) and blocks (eighth, 1.3). The native of Newport, Maine, is a finalist for the John R. Wooden Award, presented to the nation’s most outstanding player. He also is a finalist for the 2025 Julius Erving Award, presented to the top small forward in the country. He was named ACC Rookie of the Week a record 12 times this season.

In his first season at the helm of Louisville, Kelsey has led a remarkable turnaround for the Cardinals, who own a 25-6 record and finished in a second-place tie in the ACC regular-season standings at 18-2. Louisville earned its highest ACC Tournament seed in program history, just a year after a last-place finish and the No. 15 seed at the 2024 ACC Tournament.

While Kelsey is Louisville’s first ACC Coach of the Year honoree, Hepburn is the Cardinals’ first player to be tabbed ACC Defensive Player of the Year. The Omaha, Nebraska, native leads the conference in steals this season with 73 (2.43 per game). He heads up the Cardinals’ defensive effort and in addition to his staunch on-ball defense on the perimeter has averaged 16.3 points and 5.9 assists per game, which rank 11th and third in the ACC, respectively. He was named to the Naismith Trophy Midseason Watch List earlier this season.

Hand Jr. is the second BC player in the last three years to earn the ACC Most Improved Player honor, joining Quinten Post in 2023. The native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, averaged a team-best 15.7 points per game this season, boosting his scoring average by 10.7 points per game from a season ago and ranking 15th in the ACC. That jump is the third best among all ACC players this season. He also led the team in rebounding at 6.1 rebounds per game.

Wilkinson has made a tremendous impression during his freshman campaign in picking up ACC Sixth Man of the Year honors. In 31 games, he is averaging 15.4 points per game, but he has averaged 17.0 points per game in league play, which is seventh among all players. He owns 10 20-point games this season.

Duke led all schools with three honorees on the All-ACC first, second and third teams, while Clemson and Louisville each had two. The All-ACC first team features Flagg, Hepburn, Stanford’s Maxime Raynaud (20.1 ppg, 10.9 rpg, NCAA-leading 23 double-doubles), Clemson’s Chase Hunter (16.0 ppg) and Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis (18.0 ppg), who earned first team honors for the second straight season.

The second team consists of North Carolina’s RJ Davis (17.3 ppg), Notre Dame’s Markus Burton (ACC-leading 22.2 ppg), Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin (12.9 ppg, 9.3 rpg), Duke’s Kon Knueppel (13.6 ppg) and Florida State’s Jamir Watkins (18.5 ppg).

The All-ACC third team includes Louisville’s Terrence Edwards Jr. (15.8 ppg), Duke’s Tyrese Proctor (11.5 ppg), Georgia Tech’s Baye Ndongo (13.6 ppg, 9.1 rpg), SMU’s Boopie Miller (13.4, 5.7 apg) and Pitt’s Jaland Lowe (16.8 ppg, 5.5 apg).
 
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