UNC Basketball: Luke Maye wins Skip Prosser Award

UNC Basketball senior Luke Maye will be honored with the Skip Prosser Award, recognizing excellence in academics as well as athletics

Luke Maye will play his final game in the Dean E. Smith Center on Saturday as the North Carolina Tar Heels host Duke on Senior Night.

After a thrilling four-year career with the Tar Heels, Maye will play in front of the home crowd for the final time. But before that happens, Maye was announced as the winner of a big award in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

For the second-straight year, Maye has been named the ACC Skip Prosser Award as the league’s top scholar-athlete in men’s basketball. As the winner, Maye headlines the 2018-19 All-ACC Academic Men’s Basketball team as well and was joined by his teammate Nassir Little on the team.

The award was created in 2008 and named after former Wake Forest head coach George Edward “Skip” Prosser who passed away in July of 2007. Prosser coached 14 seasons at Wake Forest, putting together a 291-146 record.

Maye is the third player in conference history to win the award twice, joining UNC’s Tyler Zeller and Marcus Paige as the others to do it. The full list of winners is below:

• Clemson’s Cliff Hammonds (2008)
• Miami’s Jack McClinton (2009)
• Virginia’s Jerome Meyinsse (2010)
• UNC’s Tyler Zeller (2011, 2012)
• Duke’s Mason Plumlee (2013)
• Pitt’s Cameron Wright (2014)
• UNC’s Marcus Paige (2015, 2016)
• Miami’s Davon Reed (2017)
• UNC’s Luke Maye (2018, 2019)

The award highlights excellence in both the classroom and on the basketball court. To be nominated, a student-athelete must be an upperclassman and have a grade-point average of 3.0 or better – both in his career and in the previous two semesters.

Academic achievement makes up 60 percent while athletic accomplishments make up 40 percent.

Maye’s career at UNC has been remarkable. As a freshman, he reached the Final Four before UNC lost to Villanova. A year later, Maye hit one of the biggest shots in program history against Kentucky to send the Tar Heels to the Final Four.

He had his big breakout year in 2017-18 as a junior, averaging a double-double for the Tar Heels while being named First-Team All-ACC.

Maye has a chance to complete a regular season sweep over Duke on Saturday night, just  a few weeks after dropping 30 points and grabbing 15 rebounds in a win at Durham. A win for UNC on Saturday helps them clinch at least a share of the ACC regular season title.

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