Cade Cunningham Picks Up National All-America Honors

STILLWATER – The national accolades continue to pour in for Oklahoma State freshman Cade Cunningham as he was named the Sporting News National Freshman of the Year on Tuesday.

Sporting News and Sports Illustrated also tabbed Cunningham a first-team All-American. The All-America honors make Cunningham the 18th first-team All-America selection in program history and the 35th All-America selection overall.

(Editor’s note: there’s no doubt Cunningham will earn more All-America honors, so this article will be updated as those come along.)

This comes less than 24 hours after Cunningham was named to All-Big 12 First Team, the Big 12 Freshman of the Year and the Big 12 Player of the Year. He became the third Cowboy to win Freshman of the Year, joining Marcus Smart and Jawun Evans, and only the fourth player in Big 12 history win both Freshman and Player of the Year awards, joining the elite company of Marcus Smart, Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley.

The Big 12 also tabbed Cade as the Newcomer of the Week on Monday, giving him his ninth selection of the season as he finished the regular season as the top scorer in both conference play with 19.7 points and overall on the season with 20.1 points per game.

Cunningham is also a finalist for the Bob Cousy Point Guard Award and a semifinalist for the Naismith Player of the Year Award.

This impressive stat provided by Oklahoma State athletics media relations, by way of Stats Perform, show just how dominate Cade was this season. There are only four other power conference players over the last 20 seasons that match his all-around stat line of 19.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.0 blocks per game.

The Cowboys will face West Virginia in the first round of the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, Mo, this coming Thursday, March 11. Tipoff is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.