FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nation's leading block leader
also named Defensive Player of Year
WINTHROP, Mass. – Albertus Magnus College senior Victor Ljuljdjuraj has been named the 2015 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Men's Basketball Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, as voted upon by the league's 10 head coaches.
Ljuljdjuraj (pictured), who was named the 2015 GNAC Tournament Most Valuable Player this past weekend after leading the Falcons to their fourth straight conference championship, has posted per-game averages of 19.0 points, 10.9 rebounds and 4.28 blocks for the 27-1 Albertus Magnus program, which will learn its spot within the NCAA Tournament bracket on Monday.
The Yorktown Heights, N.Y. native's 4.28 blocks per game is tops in NCAA men's basketball across Divisions I, II and III. He has 19 double-doubles on the season, 10 games in which he has posted six or more blocks, and has shot 57.2 percent overall from the floor.
In Saturday's GNAC title game victory over Johnson & Wales University, the senior posted a monster 24-point, 17-rebound, 9-block stat line.
Ljuljdjuraj was joined by senior teammate Tavon Sledge on the GNAC All-Conference First Team. Sledge is second among league leaders in scoring at 20.6 points per game to go along with 5.1 assists and a 51.6 percent field-goal percentage. Sledge dropped 35 points on Saturday in the Falcons' championship victory.
A pair of Johnson & Wales juniors also received First Team recognition in Tom Garrick and Quarry Greenaway. Greenaway was third in the GNAC in scoring (20.0) and fifth in rebounding (7.3), while Garrick was fourth in scoring at 19.6 points per game to go along with an average of 7.0 rebounds. The duo led the Wildcats to a 22-6 overall record and a second-place finish in the conference standings.
Rounding out the First Team was Saint Joseph's College of Maine senior Steve Simonds, who led the GNAC in scoring at 22.5 points per game and was the second-leading rebounder, behind only Ljuljdjuraj, at 7.9 rebounds. The league's top three-point shooter, Simonds shot 45.8 percent (98-214) from beyond the arc for the season, as he attempted 52 more threes than any other GNAC student-athlete and connected on 31 more than anyone else in the conference.
GNAC regular-season and tournament champion Albertus Magnus led the way with four All-Conference selections, as seniors Eian Davis and Lemar Larsen both earned Second Team honors. Johnson & Wales had three selections, while Anna Maria College and Saint Joseph's of Maine both had two honorees. For the complete list of All-Conference Teams, please see below.
Norwich University freshman Mike Hogervorst was voted the 2015 GNAC Rookie of the Year by the conference's head coaches, as the first-year player averaged 13.2 points on 51.8 percent shooting to go along with 4.7 rebounds for the Cadets. A Leiden, Netherlands native and GNAC Third Team selection, his 1.3 blocks per game was second among GNAC leaders.
Anna Maria head coach Shawn Conrad was named the league's Coach of the Year following a vote of his peers. The ninth-year leader of the AMCATS program guided his team to a 12-6 mark in league play to solidify the No. 3 seed in the GNAC Tournament. It is the second GNAC Coach of the Year honor for Conrad, who also notched his 100th win at Anna Maria back in January.
Mount Ida College received the GNAC Men's Basketball Institutional Sportsmanship Award.
Founded in 1995, the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) is an NCAA Division III association made up of 12 member institutions and over 3,000 student-athletes across the New England region. Each year, the GNAC sponsors and administers 17 championships, while balancing academic integrity, athletic opportunities and community involvement.
First Team
Victor Ljuljdjuraj, Albertus Magnus (Sr., F, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.)
Tavon Sledge, Albertus Magnus (Sr., G, Spring Valley, N.Y.)
Tom Garrick, Johnson & Wales (Jr., G, Seekonk, Mass.)
Quarry Greenaway, Johnson & Wales (Jr., G, Westchester, N.Y.)
Steve Simonds, Saint Joseph's Maine (Sr., G, Steep Falls, Maine)
Second Team
Eian Davis, Albertus Magnus (Sr., G, Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Lemar Larsen, Albertus Magnus (Sr., F, Waterbury, Conn.)
Pat Bradanese, Anna Maria (Jr., G, Billerica, Mass.)
Kyle Davis, Emmanuel (Jr., C, Groveland, Mass.)
Pat Marchand, Lasell (Jr., F, Cranston, R.I.)
Third Team
Quantez Franklin, Anna Maria (Sr., F, South Yarmouth, Mass.)
Robert Lewis, Johnson & Wales (Jr., G, Providence, R.I.)
Mike Hogervorst, Norwich (Fr., C, Leiden, Netherlands)
Zach Blodgett, Saint Joseph's Maine (Sr., F, Glenburn, Maine)
Sam Nwadike, Suffolk (Sr., G, Houston, Texas)
Player of the Year – Victor Ljuljdjuraj, Albertus Magnus
Defensive Player of the Year – Victor Ljuljdjuraj, Albertus Magnus
Rookie of the Year – Mike Hogervorst, Norwich
Coach of the Year – Shawn Conrad, Anna Maria
Institutional Sportsmanship Award – Mount Ida College
All-Sportsmanship Team
Med Fofana, Albertus Magnus
David Jean Louis, Anna Maria
Colin Cordero, Emmanuel
Julian Bolton, Johnson & Wales
Scott Arsenault, Lasell
Brendan Cunningham, Mount Ida
Evan Tullar, Norwich
David Lorden, Rivier
Zach Blodgett, Saint Joseph's Maine
Jake Meister, Suffolk
– #theGNAC –