By Darren Sands
Awards Abound
Loren Stokes was awarded Co-CAA Player of the Week honors for averaging 24.5 points and nine rebounds in wins over James Madison and UNC-Wilmington. Stokes scored a career-high 30 points against JMU.
He shares the week’s honors with JMU’s Cavell Johnson, who averaged 25 points and shot 63 percent from the field in two games.
Stokes also garnered Player of the Week honors from the Metropolitan Basketball Writer’s Association.
The newly designed award is open to colleges in the New York Metropolitan area in all three NCAA divisions. Stokes, meanwhile, is one of only eight players in the country who rank in the top-10 in his conference’s scoring, rebounding, assists and steals.
The Tooth Hurts
Wendell Gibson got his tooth knocked out late in the second half, but returned to the line up immediately in Saturday’s game against UNC-Wilmington. Gibson scored 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting.
“We’ll have the best oral surgeon on Long Island take care of him, and he’ll be alright,” Tom Pecora said.
Counting Backwards From 1,000
Jeremy Kniffin, men’s basketball’s sports information director, has been painstakingly careful in his treatment of the program’s approach to 1,000 wins.
A little research showed that the Pride’s records differed from those of the NCAA, and Kniffin responded accordingly.
“I was looking to see how many teams in the country had 1,000 wins already and I came across a listing on the NCAA Web site of everyone’s all-time records,” Kniffin said. “They had us with 981 going into this year, whereas we had it an 982. I asked them to send me the year-by-year records that they had, and they had it right, so I made the adjustment. Just basically a simple book-keeping error, but one that’s been there for 20 or more years — since we started compiling all-time records in the media guides.”
The win against UNC-Wilmington on Saturday was actually No. 997, putting the all-time record at 997-753.
The Pride can post the 1,000th win games at the University of Delaware and Old Dominion University, and homes games against Towson University and George Mason University. The Pride is guaranteed at least one conference tournament game.