Monday, February 06, 2006

Macon, Ga. – Campbell’s Eric Smith earned his first career Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Week award after filling up the basket from beyond the three-point line to help the Fighting Camels clinch a berth in the 2006 General Shale A-Sun Championship.

Smith scored a career-high 31 points -- the most by a Campbell player in nearly 3 years -- while hitting a career-best eight three-pointers (in 16 attempts) during CU's 95-90 loss Thursday at Florida Atlantic. Smith ran his string of 20-plus point games to three straight while hitting double digits for the 7th time in a row and 18th time this year. Earlier in the week in a 91-77 victory over Jacksonville, Smith scored 23 points, hitting 7-of-11 triples, while pulling down six rebounds to match his career-high.

For the week, he averaged 27.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists, while shooting 53.1% (17-of-32) from the floor, including 55.6% (15-of-27) from 3-point range in 2 outings. Over the last three games (as CU went 2-1), Smith is averaging 26.3 points per game, while connecting on 55.3% (21-of-38) of his 3-point attempts. With 81 three’s through 21 games, Smith is just 15 shy of tying the school record for triples made in a year (96) set by Mark Mocnik in 1991-92 and equaled by Adam Fellers in 1999-2000. Smith is majoring in Sports Management at Campbell.

The Chicago, Ill., native ranked 6th nationally last week in 3-point field goals made per game, and continues to lead the league in the category (3.86). He also rates 7th in scoring (16.2) and 9th in 3-point field goal percentage (.407). His sharp-shooting placed Campbell 3rd nationally in scoring (83.7) and 3-point field goals per game (9.9) in the last Tuesday’s official NCAA rankings. The Fighting Camels will be making their first postseason appearance since 2001 and aim for their first tournament victory since knocking off Stetson in the first round of the 1996 championship as the second seed.

The Atlantic Sun Conference hands out Player of the Week awards weekly during the 2005-06 basketball campaign.

The 11-member league headquartered in Macon, Ga., consists of Belmont, Campbell, ETSU, Florida Atlantic, Gardner-Webb, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, Mercer, North Florida and Stetson.

OTHER TOP PERFORMERS
• Boomer Herndon, Belmont (Jr. - C - Nashville, Tenn. - Mass Communications Major)
Matched a career-high with 27 points, including 18 in the second half, in rally at Mercer

• Andre Morgan, Kennesaw State (Fr. - G - Buford, Ga. - Communications Major)
Averaged 31.5 ppg higlighted by 35-point effort at UNF while starting at point guard for first time

• Quinton Young, FAU (Sr. - G - Chicago, Ill. - Social Science Major)
Hit 9-of-13 three-pointers during 2-0 week for the Owls.

• Alain LaRoche, UNF (Sr. - F - Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - Finance Major)
Tallied 3 double-doubles and averaged 21.7 points and 11.0 rebounds per game

• Rashad Williams, UNF (Jr. - F – Macon, Ga. - Business Major)
Posted two double-doubles, including an impressive 32-point, 12-rebound performance against ETSU on Sunday.