Panther backcourt gets well-deserved All-SCIAC awards

ORANGE, Calif. – The NCAA Tournament-bound Chapman University men's basketball team has felt all year it had one of, if not the, most talented backcourts in the SCIAC. Now the Panthers have some hardware to prove it as junior guards Colin Zavrsnick and Taylor Hamasaki have been named to the All-SCIAC First and Second teams, respectively.

Zavrsnick (18.4 ppg) just edged Hamasaki (18.2 ppg) for the team scoring lead through the end of the regular season and SCIAC Tournament – which the Panthers won. The junior earned First Team honors after also leading the conference in scoring average and topping Chapman with 72 three-point field goals and ranking 23rd in Division III in three-point percentage (43.4). Zavrsnick had 13 games with 20 or more points and is just three points away from the first 500-point season of his career.

His backcourt partner Hamasaki earned Second Team honors, finishing third in the SCIAC in scoring and shattering the Chapman record with 140 free throws made and leading the conference. Hamasaki had 10 games this season with 20 or more points, including a career-high 31 points versus Cornell (Iowa) on Dec. 29. He's just eight points shy of his own 500-point season which would make them the first 1,000 point duo in Chapman's Division III history.

The Chapman men will take on UT-Dallas on Friday night in Dallas in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament. The Panthers are making their third playoff appearance in five years.

The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was established in 1915. The league is currently comprised of nine private colleges and universities in Southern California: California Institute of Technology, California Lutheran University, Chapman University, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, University of La Verne, Occidental College, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, University of Redlands, and Whittier College. The conference recognizes outstanding athletic achievements of its student-athletes on a weekly and annual basis.

All-SCIAC Men's Basketball Teams: http://www.thesciac.org/sports/mbkb/2013-14/releases/20140304gyv8sk

by Doug Aiken
Sports Information Director

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