LSU Guard Skylar Mays Named Academic All-America Player of the Year for 2020 Season

For those who have followed the career of senior guard Skylar Mays, you may have heard once or twice that he’s a pre-med major balancing an incredibly difficult workload.

On Monday, that hard work in the classroom was recognized by the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) as Mays was named the Academic All-America of the year by the organization. Mays sports a 3.93 GPA as a kinesiology major after switching from biology at the start of his junior season.

As a result, Mays lost over 30 hours of credit with the switch to kinesiology so his hours and class schedules have remained heavy. Mays was named to the Academic All-America second-team in 2017-18 and to the first-team in his junior season as well as this season as a senior.

In addition to his phenomenal work in the classroom, Mays leads the team in scoring at 16.7 points a game and is tied for third in the conference in steals per game with 1.8 a contest. Earlier this season Mays became the first player in program history to score 1,600 career points, dish 300 assists, grab 400 rebounds and swipe 200 steals.

For his on the court accomplishments this season, Mays was top-10 finalist for the Jerry West Award and is in the running for SEC Player of the Year after helping the Tigers earn the No. 3 seed in this week’s SEC tournament.

Mays leaves behind a unique legacy at LSU as a four-year starter, saying before his final game in the PMAC that he feels he helped leave the program in a better place than when he came.

“The best part is that I don’t have any regrets. I came to work every day,” Mays said. “I can look in the mirror and say that. I know I’ve approached the game the right way. It’s brought a lot of great moments, a lot of great experiences, and things that I’ll never forget