Kalsow Named Division III Player of the
Year; Bennett Earns All-American
After winning a second straight NCAA Division III
men�s basketball championship and rewriting UW-Stevens Point�s career
records book, senior Jason Kalsow has been named the Division III Player of
the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Kalsow was also the Basketball Times National Player of the Year and a
first-team All-American selection by D3hoops.com. Teammate Nick Bennett was
also named first-team All-American by Basketball Times and D3hoops.com,
while earning third-team NABC All-American honors. Coach Jack Bennett was
selected as the Basketball Times Coach of the Year.
Kalsow�s Player of the Year honor marks the second
straight year a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference player has won
the award after Rich Melzer of UW-River Falls was selected last year.
UW-Platteville�s Merrill Brunson is the league�s only other winner in its
23-year history, claiming the honor in 1999. Kalsow will be honored at the
NCAA Division I Final Four in St. Louis at the NABC awards banquet on April
3.
His award comes just two days after UW-Stevens
Point�s Amanda Nechuta was announced as the Division III women�s Player of
the Year. It marks the first time in any NCAA division that a school has had
both Player of the Year winners in the same year. In fact, UW-Stevens Point
becomes the first Division III school ever to have both a men�s and women�s
national Player of the Year in its history.
Kalsow, a 6-7 forward from Huntley, Ill., was the
Most Valuable Player of this year�s Division III final four and started all
121 games in his four-year career. He is UW-Stevens Point�s all-time leading
scorer and rebounder with 1,859 points and 883 rebounds. He also had a
school record 731 field goals made and was second in school history with 465
assists.
Kalsow is the third NABC first-team All-American
in school history, joining Terry Porter in 1985 and Brant Bailey in 2000. He
led the WIAC with 19.1 points per game, 4.4 assists per game and a 48.9
three-point field goal percentage. He was also second in the league in
rebounding at 7.4 per game. He ranked among the top 15 in all 12 WIAC
statistical categories.
Nick Bennett, a 6-5 guard who played at Stevens Point Area Senior High,
finished third in school history in career scoring with 1,646 points. He set
a school record and ranks second in WIAC history with 232 career
three-pointers and eclipsed his own single-season school record with 88
three-pointers this year. Bennett ranked second in the WIAC in scoring at
18.3 points per game and was sixth in the nation in free throw shooting at
89.4 percent. Bennett was at his best in the NCAA tournament, averaging 23.2
points and shooting 57.0 percent from three-point range in 12 career
tournament games.
Jack Bennett was the D-III News National Coach of
the Year last season and is the third coach to guide a team to back-to-back
national titles. He is UW-Stevens Point�s all-time winningest coach and
ranks second among active Division III coaches in winning percentage with a
200-56 career record. |
