Former Peninsula star JaQuori McLaughlin, now at UC Santa Barbara, named Big West Player of the Year
Former Peninsula High School basketball star JaQuori McLaughlin, now in his third season at UC Santa Barbara, has been named the Big West Player of the Year, the conference announced Monday.
The senior guard is leading the Gauchos in scoring (15.6 points per game) and assists (5.4) entering the Big West Tournament, which begins Tuesday in Las Vegas. The Gauchos open their run for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in the quarterfinals at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Behind McLaughlin — who ranks among the top players in the conference in assists (second), scoring (fourth), and steals (sixth, 1.6), among other categories — UC Santa Barbara (19-4) locked up its first regular season title since 2010 last week.
McLaughlin is the seventh player in UCSB history to earn the conference’s Player of the Year honors, and first since 2014.
He has appeared in 22 games for the Gauchos this season, scored in double digits in all but four, and posted six 20-point outings while shooting 48.3% from the floor and 40.5% from 3-point range.
On top of his team-leading scoring and assists averages, he’s added 3.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game.
After dropping three of their first seven games, the Gauchos are on a 15-1 run since Jan. 1, with McLaughlin leading the way.
His Player of the Year honor caps what has been an impressive three seasons at UC Santa Barbara, where he has collected 1,072 career points and 346 assists. He’s logged more than 100 assists each season.
McLaughlin’s production has steadily climbed each season with the Gauchos. His redshirt sophomore season, he averaged 10.3 points and 4.1 assists starting each of the program’s 32 games, and bumped those numbers up to 13.4 points and 4.1 assists as a junior on his way to a honorable mention nod on the All-Big West team.
Prior to arriving in Santa Barbara, McLaughlin played his freshman season at Oregon State in 2016-17, started 30 of 32 games, averaged 10.5 points and 3.3 assists per game, and hit a freshman program record 58 3-pointers.
Six games into the following season he opted to transfer and redshirted in 2017-18 before landing with UCSB.
McLaughlin was consensus four-star guard in high school, considered the No. 2 player in Washington in the 2016 class behind Rainier Beach’s Sam Cunliffe, and a top-100 player nationally.
He was named Mr. Basketball for the 2015-16 season by the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association after averaging 19.3 points, 9.1 assists and 5.5 steals his final high school season. He was also a two-time Associated Press all-state selection, two-time TNT All-Area first-team pick and four-time 3A South Puget Sound League first-teamer, earning an MVP nod as a junior.
Peninsula won a school-record 21 games his senior season in 2016 and advanced to the state playoffs for the first time since 2008. The Seahawks haven’t been back since.
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
