The Sports Inquirer

Release from Georgia State Athletics:

Georgia State junior R.J. Hunter was named to the Naismith Trophy Top 50 List as announced by the Atlanta Tipoff Club on Wednesday morning. The award is given annually to the top player in the country.

The Atlanta Tipoff Club administers the Naismith Awards, which have become the most prestigious national honors in all of college basketball. Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball, the Naismith Trophy presented by AT&T recognizes the top Men’s and Women’s College Basketball Players of the Year.

Hunter was named the 2014-15 Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year following a sophomore season where he earned the Sun Belt Player of the Year award after averaging 18.3 points per game and leading the conference with a school-record 100 3-pointers made. He earned AP All-America honorable mention recognition and was the Sun Belt Male Athlete of the Year for all sports.

This year, Hunter has already been named to the John R. Wooden Award Watch List and Lou Henson Award preseason list. He is averaging 22.9 points per game, tops in the Sun Belt and fourth in the nation.

He is also 37^th in the NCAA averaging 3.14 3-pointers per game and 30^th in steals, averaging 2.57 per contest.

Hunter is the first Panther in program history to be named to this prestigious list. He is the only player in the Sun Belt named to the list and one of only a handful of mid-major players among the top 50.

Hunter became the 18^th Panther in program history to score 1,000 career points last year, accomplishing it in just 55 games, the second quickest in GSU history. He has already moved into fifth on GSU’s all-time scoring list and is just 224 points shy of tying the school record of 1,515 points.