PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Ace Bailey earned his first Big Ten Freshman of the Week honor on Monday.
After scoring 24 points in the victory over Columbia on Dec. 30 and a career-high 39 points in the loss at Assembly Hall against Indiana, the Chattanooga, Tenn. native shares the award with Illinois freshman Kasparas Jakucionis.
This marks Bailey's first Big Ten Freshman of the Week Award and the fourth time a Scarlet Knight has been named to the award this season. Fellow freshman
Dylan Harper was named to the award the previous three times. Bailey joins Harper, Ron Harper Jr., Geo Baker and Corey Sanders as the only players to win the award.
Bailey finished with 24 points and eight rebounds in the victory over Columbia in which he paced the Scarlet Knights with 17 points in the first half. RU handed Columbia their second loss of the season with a 91-64 victory in front of a sold-out crowd at Jersey Mike's Arena.
Bailey had one of the greatest individual performances in Rutgers history at Assembly Hall on Thursday. The 6-foot-10 forward scored a career-high 39 points, had eight rebounds, and four blocks (53 percent of RU's total points in the game). That tied the most points by a Rutgers freshman in a Big Ten game in program history and the second most by any opponent in Assembly Hall. His 16 field goals were the most ever by a Rutgers freshman. His 39 points were the second most for any opponent in Assembly Hall history and 14
th-most in a single game in Rutgers' history.
Bailey's 16 field goals were the most ever by a RU player in a Big Ten game, the most ever by a RU freshman, and the 10
th-most by a RU player in a single game. His field goals were tied for the most-ever field goals by a visiting player in Assembly Hall history (Mychal Thompson, Minnesota, 1977).
