Graves; Ross Highlight SCAC Men's Basketball All-Region Selections

Graves; Ross Highlight SCAC Men's Basketball All-Region Selections

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - Birmingham-Southern College and Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year Chris Graves, along with Centre College senior Greg Ross, highlight the conference's selections to the D3hoops.com Men's All-South Region team the website announced on Monday. All-South Region Team | All-West Region Team

Graves was selected as the South Region Coach-of-the-Year and Ross was named to the South Region First Team. Graves is just the third Region Coach-of-the-Year honoree from an SCAC institution - following Mitch Coloe of Birmingham-Southern who was selected South Region Coach-of-the-Year in 2010-11 and Greg Mason of Centre who won the award in 2007-08.

Joining Ross as All-Region selections was Zac Richards of Birmingham-Southern who was named to the All-South Region Third Team. Ryan Milne of Colorado College was an All-West Region Second Team selection.

  Despite dealing with double-teams for much of the season, Ross (pictured left) was second in the league in scoring at 16.4 points per game and led the SCAC in rebounding with 8.0 boards per game. The senior also led the SCAC in free throw percentage at 86.8 percent (118-136) and was second in field goal percentage at 52.6 percent (160-304). He recorded a league-high six double-doubles this season and led Centre in scoring 12 times and rebounding 17 times. In a signature win over sixth-ranked Cabrini College, Ross hit a free throw with no time left to send the game into overtime, then hit two more free throws with no time left in the overtime period to win the game. Ross was a first team All-SCAC selection this season. Ross was a three time SCAC Player of the Week selection during the season.

Graves (pictured right), who is in his first year as head coach, guided the Panthers to a banner year, finishing 25-3 and earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III national tournament the first year they were eligible. He was also named SCAC Coach-of-the-Year, the first time that a first-year head coach has earned the honor and guided the Panthers to the SCAC tournament semifinals. Birmingham-Southern was ranked as high as eighth by D3hoops.com during the season.

Graves served as an assistant coach at Birmingham-Southern the previous three seasons under last year's South Region Coach-of-the-Year Mitch Cole and moved into the head coaching chair after Cole resigned to take a job with Texas A&M last year. As an assistant, Graves helped guide the Panthers to the 2010-11 NCAA Division III Provisional tournament championship in their final year of reclassifying from Division I to Division III.

  Junior forward Zac Richards of Birmingham-Southern (pictured left) averaged 11.9 points (16th – SCAC) and 6.2 rebounds(tied 7th – SCAC)  a game for the Panthers while being named to the All-SCAC first team. He also shot 63.9 percent from the floor for the year. He tallied two double-doubles on the season and led the Panthers in scoring 11 times and rebounding 13 times during the season. Richards was fourth in the league in free throw percentage at 80.8 (84-104) percent. Richards earned SCAC Player of the Week laurels twice during the season.

  Sophomore guard Ryan Milne of Colorado College (pictured right) followed up his SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year award by leading the SCAC in scoring (19.0 points per game), assists (5.0 assists per game) and minutes played (37.7 minutes per game). He ranked among the league's best in free throw percentage (85.0 percent - 2nd), field goal percentage (38.1 percent - 6th) and made 3-point field goals (2.4 per game - tied for 3rd). He led the Tigers in scoring 14 times during the season and scored 20 or more points 11 times including two 30+ point efforts. Milne was a first team All-SCAC honoree and garnered SCAC Player of the Week honors three times during the season.

Players were nominated for these awards by the Sports Information Directors at the various schools, who were contacted multiple times as the season wound down to remind them to make their players eligible. There were 680 players nominated nationwide, a new high. The ballot was then made available to SIDs, who voted for a predetermined number of players in their region. 

Happy Holidays from the SCAC!
December 25, 2011 Happy Holidays from the SCAC!