1. Jaycee Carroll:
College Per Game Stats:
Per Game: 18.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2 assists
Career Totals: 2522 points (most in school history)
680 rebounds (12th in school history)
270 assists (20th in school history)
Awards:
Big West Tournament MVP (2005)
2x First Team All-WAC (2007, 2008)
WAC Player of the Year: 2008
AP Honorable Mention All-American: 2008
Why to vote for him:
If we are strictly going off of college performance, Jaycee Carroll has had a lot of success which is due to his hard work. Though undersized, he played big. Before his senior season he shot 23,963 shots and worked endlessly on different drills to improve his game.
He leads USU history in 11 statistical categories:
Career:
Points, Field Goals Made, Field Goals attempted, 3 point FG made, 3 point FG attempted, 10+ point games, Games Started, total minutes played,
single season: 3 point FG made, 3 point FG attempted, minutes played
(Per usustats.com)
Jaycee Carroll was one of the best scorers in state history for college. He gets the 1 seed here but he will have plenty of competition from other talented players from the state. He was very close to being a 50-40-90 player. He shot 46.5% from three, 51.1% from the field and 86.2% from the charity stripe in his four years at Utah State. Vote for him if you value hard work and elite shooting especially from beyond the arc.
#16 Neemias Queta
College Per Game Career Stats (so far):
12.3 points, 2.1 blocks, 1.9 assists, 8.5 rebounds
Career Totals: 700 points, 122 blocks, 98 assists, 422 rebounds
Awards:
Mountain West Freshman of the Year – 2019
Mountain West DPOY – 2020
2x Second Team All-Mountain West 2019-2020
Why to vote for him: If you value defense, vote for Queta. He probably won’t ever eclipse the greatest shooters in Aggie history but he is sort of the “Rudy Gobert” rim protector at least at the college level for the Aggies. If he can smooth out his game he has a real chance to be drafted to the NBA which is something that, despite his excellent scoring in college, Jaycee Carroll never did.
Queta also currently has the most career blocks per game in school history with 2.1 and is already 4th all time in school history. If he doesn’t leave for the NBA this year he has a real chance to pass Gilbert Pete for most career blocks in school history. He has just 33 more blocks than Queta. Neemias is only a sophomore and already set the single season blocks record with 84 his freshman year which was also a single season per game record with 2.4 swats per contest.
Queta also has a real chance to become one of the top rebounders in Aggie history. So far his other sophomore teammate, Justin Bean, has 45 more rebounds. Behind Queta and the double-double Bean Machine, the Aggies were one of the top rebounding teams in the nation. Both players are on pace to pass Cornell Green next year for most boards in school history. It will be an interesting competition if both players compete until their senior seasons.
If you’ve ever seen Queta swat a shot into the 3rd row, dunk a basketball or rise in popularity so much that the USU Hurd Student Section made this larger-than-life cardboard cutout of him:
Then you know that this 16 seed has a true chance to upset the top seed Jaycee Carroll. The only reason his seed is a 16 is it’s unclear at this point when his college career will end.
Vote for this matchup as well as the other 7 matchups in the college basketball division of Utah March Madness! You can vote on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You have all day on Friday, March 20, 2020 to cast your votes.