Payne Earns SBNation.com Mid-Major Freshman Award

SBNation.com Article

SBNation.com has named Murray State's Cameron Payne as Mid-Major Freshman of Year in its year-end awards for the 2013-14 men's basketball season.

Payne helped the Racers to their school-record fifth consecutive 20-win season and last week's CollegeInsider.com Tournament championship.

His recent success included being named CIT MVP, as Payne led the Racers in scoring with 20.6 points per game to go with 5.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists.

Payne, out of Bartlett, Tenn., had and outstanding first season at Murray State where he was named Ohio Valley Conference Freshman of the Year. He was also named a Kyle Macy National Freshman of the Year award finalist by CollegeInsider.com.

Payne finished the season with 574 points in 34 games for 24^th place on the all-time single season list for the Racers. He joins Lamont Sleets (1979-80) as the only MSU freshman to score 500 points in a season. His 185 assists were second on the MSU single-season list behind only the 212 by Chad Townsend in the 1996-97 season.

Payne also set the MSU record and was two off the OVC single-season record with nine OVC Freshman of the Week awards.

Here are the 2013-14 mid-major awards from SBNation.com
Player of the Year – Cleanthony Early, Sr., Wichita State
Freshman of the Year – Cameron Payne, Fr., Murray State
Coach of the Year - Gregg Marshall, Wichita State
Defensive Player of the Year – Rhamel Brown, Sr., Manhattan

SBNation.com Mid-Major All-American First Team
G- Billy Baron, Sr., Canisius
G- Fred Van Vleet, So., Wichita State
F- Cleanthony Early, Sr., Wichita State
F- Jerrelle Benimon, Sr., Towson
C- Alan Williams, Jr., UC Santa Barbara

SBNation.com Mid-Major All-American Second Team
G- Keifer Sykes, Jr., Green Bay
G- Chaz Williams, Sr., Massachusetts
G- Tyler Haws, Jr., BYU
F- Javon McCrea, Sr., Buffalo
F- Taylor Braun, Sr., North Dakota State

Honorable Mention
Aaric Murray, Sr., Texas Southern
Ron Baker, So., Wichita State
Maurice Watson So., Boston U.
Elfrid Payton, Jr., Louisiana-Lafayette
Wesley Saunders, Jr., Harvard
J.J. Mann, Sr., Belmont
Jeremey Ingram, Sr., NC Central
R.J. Hunter, So., Georgia State
Jason Brickman, Sr., LIU Brooklyn
Antoine Mason, Jr., Niagara

Murray State University Athletics

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