Doug McDermott leads AP All-America team
Jabari Parker, Russ Smith, Sean Kilpatrick and Shabazz Napier in the All-America Team
Doug McDermott spent his senior season passing a lot of big names on the career scoring list. He is now among some very select company.
The senior forward from Creighton was a unanimous choice for The Associated Press All-America team on Monday. He is the first three-time choice in 29 years and the 11th player overall.
McDermott, who led the nation in scoring at 26.9 points a game, joins Oscar Robertson, Lew Alcindor, Pete Maravich and Bill Walton among others. The last three-time All-Americas were Patrick Ewing of Georgetown and Wayman Tisdale of Oklahoma from 1982-85.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being with names of that caliber," McDermott said. "Truly an honor to be an All-American three straight years. It's hard to wrap my mind around being in the company of those guys."
McDermott was one of four seniors on this year's team, which included freshman Jabari Parker of Duke. The other seniors all came from the first-year American Athletic Conference: Russ Smith of Louisville, Shabazz Napier of Connecticut and Sean Kilpatrick of Cincinnati.
It's the first time one conference had three players picked since the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2001-02 with Duke's Shane Battier and Jason Williams and North Carolina's Joseph Forte.
McDermott received 65 first-team votes and 325 points from the same national media panel that selects the weekly Top 25.
Parker drew 55 first-team votes and was second with 303 points. Smith had 54 first-team votes and 298 points, 44 more than Napier, who got 37 first-team votes. Kilpatrick was a first-team pick 37 times and had 243 points.
The voting was done on Selection Sunday.