2007 All-Southland Conference Men's Basketball Teams Announced
March 6, 2007
FRISCO, Texas -
Senior center Chris Daniels made the most of his only season of play in the Southland Conference as he has been voted Player of the Year in men's basketball as voted by the league's head coaches and sports information directors.
Complete Release in PDF Format
Daniels, a 7-foot, 265-pound product of San Antonio's Sam Houston High School, and A&M-Corpus Christi joined the Southland last summer and walked away with the regular-season title with a 14-2 conference mark. It went to the wire as the Islanders had to win on the road at Sam Houston State in the final regular-season game. An 85-68 win gave them a one-game margin over SHSU, which finished 13-3 in league play.
Daniels has helped A&M-Corpus Christi to a 23-6 overall record and wins in 17 of their last 19 and 19 of their last 22 by averaging 15.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.6 blocks. He shot 59.0 percent (175-295) from the floor to rank fifth in the league. A third-year player at his school, Daniels was voted SLC Player of the Week twice during the season.
Teammate Josh Washington, a senior from Lubbock, Texas, joins Daniels on the All-SLC first team, making A&M-Corpus Christi the only squad with two-first team selections. Washington heads into the postseason ranked 12th in the SLC with 13.0 ppg. He leads the league with 46.8 (81-173) aim on 3-point attempts, ranking him second in treys made.
Sam Houston State's Ryan Bright, a 6-6 forward from Deer Park, Texas, is one of three juniors on the first unit. He helped his Bearkats to a 21-9 regular season and has them seeded No. 2 in the Southland postseason tournament. Bright is seventh in the SLC with 14.3 points, third with 8.1 rebounds and fourth with 1.7 steals per games.
The Southland's leading scorer, Stefan Blaszczynski, a senior from Sydney, Australia, finished the season with a 19.2 scoring average as his Colonels missed the postseason. The first-team All-SLC pick is tied for seventh in rebounding at 7.0 per game, ranks 13th with 3.2 assists and 14th with 2.3 steals on outing. He finished his senior year ranked ninth in free throw percentage at 78.1 (121-155).
Texas-Arlington's Jermaine Griffin rounds out the first-team All-SLC club. The junior forward from Houston, Texas, is 11th heading into the postseason with 13.4 ppg and he is tied with Blaszczynski in rebounds at 8.1. Griffin leads the Mavericks into the postseason as the No. 5 seed, hoping to shine in his hometown as the SLC Tournament will be played in Houston.
Lamar University's Lamar Sanders is the Southland Newcomer of the Year after completing the regular season of his junior year averaging 12.1 points and 10.0 rebounds. He is the lone Southland player averaging a double-double heading to the postseason. The Hickory, Miss., product who transferred in this year from Northwest Mississippi Junior College, ranks eighth in field goal percentage at 58.6 (140-239). He was voted to the All-SLC second team.
Freshman of the Year honors go to Ro'ger Guignard of UTA, a 5-11 guard from Mesquite, Texas. He heads into the postseason with a 10.6 scoring average and ranks eighth in the SLC with a 3.5 assist average, the only freshman in the top 15 in the league. Guignard is seventh in steals at 1.5 per game, and is the only freshman in the top 15 in that category.
After leading Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to its third straight 20 win season, Ronnie Arrow has been voted Coach of the Year. Having the best year of his eight-year career in charge of the Islanders, Arrow has now won 63 games over the last three years with just 22 defeats. He now leads A&M-Corpus Christi into the postseason as the No. 1 seed at the SLC Tournament, hoping to become the sixth straight SLC regular-season champion or co-champion to win the postseason classic.