ATLANTA – UCLA senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. has been named to the 2023 Naismith Trophy Men's Player of the Year Midseason Team, as announced Thursday by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.
 
The Naismith Trophy is annually awarded to the nation's top men's and women's college basketball players. Jaquez Jr. and teammates Tyger Campbell were named to the 50-person preseason men's basketball watch list.
 
The award's Midseason Team includes 30 men's basketball players who are all in position to be named as finalists for this season's Naismith Trophy.
 
Jaquez Jr. has also been named to the midseason watch list for the John R. Wooden Award and the Oscar Robertson Trophy, as released in January. He was named as one of 10 student-athletes to the watch list for the Julius Erving Award on Wednesday, presented to the nation's top small forward.
 
Jaquez Jr., a 6-foot-7 guard/forward from Camarillo, Calif., has led UCLA in scoring (16.3 ppg) and rebounding (7.7 rpg). Ranked No. 7 in the nation, UCLA has compiled a 19-4 overall record and a conference-leading 10-2 mark in Pac-12 play. Jaquez Jr. ranks among the Pac-12's top 10 leaders in both of those categories – sixth in scoring and fifth in rebounding. He ranks fourth in the Pac-12 in steals per game (1.65). Looking at UCLA's all-time records, Jaquez Jr. has moved into the No. 21 slot on the Bruins' career scoring list and the No. 18 slot on the career rebounding list.
 
Oscar Tshiebwe was honored as the winner of the 2022 Naismith Trophy as a junior at the University of Kentucky.
 
UCLA's program has had three student-athletes win the Naismith Trophy a total of four times. Marques Johnson won the award in 1977. Bill Walton was honored as the award-winner in 1972, 1973 and 1974. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) won the award in 1969, the first year of the Naismith Trophy.