James Palmer Jr. scored a game-high 21 points, leading the East squad to a 110-105 victory over the West in the Reese's NABC College All-Star Game at US Bank Stadium on Friday.
Palmer, a 6-foot-6 guard from Upper Marlboro, Md., hit 8-of-14 shots from the floor and went 4-of-4 from the foul line, including a pair of free throws with 3.5 seconds to ice the win for the East. Palmer, who also had four rebounds, a block and a steal, was one of seven players in double figures for the East squad, as the squad overcame a 10-point first-half deficit.
Palmer became the fifth player to play in the Reese’s College All-Star Game and first since Aleks Maric in 2008.
This past season, he averaged 19.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists and 1.4 steals per game, ranking third in the Big Ten in scoring and fourth in steals. A third-team All-Big Ten selection and a first-team All-District pick by the USBWA, Palmer had 18 20-point games as a senior, including a 34-point effort against Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament. He is also one of just five Big Ten players in the last 50 years to have 200 field goals and 200 free throws in a season. In his two-year career at Nebraska, Palmer finished with the second-highest career scoring average in Husker history (18.5 points per game) as he started all 69 games in that span.
He is one of two Husker seniors competing this weekend in Minneapolis, as Glynn Watson Jr. begins action in the 2019 Dos Equis 3X3U National Championship later this evening.