« Men’s Basketball 2019-20

Skylar Mays

School
LSU
Position
Guard
Major
Premed/kinesiology

Classroom

Skylar Mays was a First Team CoSIDA Academic All-America in 2019 and a Second Team member in 2018. He has received SEC Academic Honor Roll three years. Mays is a two-time winner of the Jesse Owens Student GPS Award by the LSU Black Faculty/Staff Caucus and is a 4.0 student.

Character

Mays is one of the most respected student-athletes on the LSU campus. He showed his true character last year when his best friend and teammate since high school, Wayde Sims, was killed in an incident on the day practice was supposed to begin for the season. He spoke at a candlelight vigil just three days after the event to a large crowd outside the basketball arena with grace and love, articulating thoughts only he could show. Mays continues to remember his teammate into his senior year, being involved with Wayde’s parents and including them as part of the team and LSU family. He is a team leader and the moral compass of LSU Basketball. Mays genuinely likes people and being a part of his team.

Community

Mays loves people and being around groups of people. He is often asked to speak at campus events, including events of our Tiger Athletic Foundation. He was featured prominently this past weekend at our BOOzar, a safe Trick or Treat program along campus where the teams participate. He can be seen on Twitter posts hanging out with young kids and has responded positively to those who post pictures with him. Coach Will Wade has an event at Christmas that takes members of the Boys and Girls Club shopping at a local store and Skylar helps lead the event. He makes sure whichever child he is assigned to gets what they need. Skylar has never walked away from signing an autograph or taking a picture, regardless of a win or loss.

Competition

Mays has played in 99 career games through three years and started all 35 games in 2018-19 when LSU won the SEC Conference and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. He averaged 13.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.9 steals. He has over 1,100 points, 200 assists and 100 steals and should become fourth LSU player to add 500 rebounds to those three categories. He made 86 percent of free throws last season (129-150) and is at 84.1 percent with 123 3pt field goals during his three years. Mays played point guard during his freshman year and has alternated between point guard and shooting guard the last two seasons.