Men’s Basketball Honor Roll Released
Taylor Hodge
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. --- The Sun Conference recognized the 2016-17 Men’s Basketball All-Conference award winners tonight at the annual awards banquet held prior to the start of the conference tournament semifinals.
Headlining the list of All-Conference winners is Warner’s Warren Hall who was selected as the Sun Conference Player of the Year for a second consecutive time. Hall led the conference and the NAIA in scoring average, scoring 30.7 points per game. His 860 points on the season was second in the NAIA. On Feb. 6 against Trinity Baptist College, Hall broke the Sun Conference’s career scoring record of 2,418 points. He finished the regular season with 2,543 points over his career.
St. Thomas’ Mikon Hewitt was named the Defensive Player of the Year. Hewitt averaged nearly nine points and ranked second in the NAIA in steals with 70 on the season and eighth in total assists with 177.
Freshman of the Year honors went to Southeastern’s Jeremy Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer led the Fire with 13.8 points per game and tallied a team-high 83 assists.
Charlie Ned-Araujo of Florida Memorial received Newcomer of the Year recognition. Ned-Araujo led the Lions to a regular season conference title by averaging 19.5 points and 5.6 points per game. He ranked second in the conference in three-pointers made with 49.
This year’s Champions of Character Award recipient is Warner’s AJ Lamb. Lamb started 26 out of 28 games for Warner to help them to a 24-4 overall regular season record.
“Not only has he shown remarkable improvement on the court, AJ has been a role model for our community for three years,” said head coach Sean Hanrahan.
Lamb co-founded the FCA Chapter at Warner where he helps organize meetings and volunteer opportunities campus wide. He is an active tutor in the Warner library and holds a 3.9 GPA majoring in Education. Some of his volunteer efforts are for the Children's Academy in Lakeland, South Lake Wales Church of God Youth Group, and the POLK County FCA ministry ops. He also serves as Warner’s Team Captain in Biblical education.
Coach of the year recognition went to Florida Memorial’s Artis Maddox. Maddox, in his second year at FMU, helped turn around a program that went 3-23 three seasons ago to a 17-7 overall and 13-3 in conference play team this season. The Lions won the Sun Conference regular season conference title out-right and will host the conference tournament for the first time.
In December, the Lions achieved an NAIA Division II national ranking for the first time since the 2007-08 season when they came in at No. 22 in the Top-25 Coaches poll.
Ten student-athletes earned Academic All-Conference recognition for their work in the classroom. To be eligible, the recipient must be at least a sophomore that has completed two semesters at their institution with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale. Keiser had a league-best three qualifiers.
Semifinal play begins Monday at 5 p.m. as Warner takes on Thomas, followed by host Florida Memorial and Keiser at 7 p.m.
First-Team All-Conference
Warren Hall, Warner
Charlie Ned-Araujo, Florida Memorial
Jaelyn Johnson-Coston, Florida Memorial
Raheem Bowman, St. Thomas
Deion McClenton, Keiser
Stanley Whittaker, Keiser
Javoris Cooks, Thomas
Second-Team All-Conference
Ricardo Suarez, Johnson & Wales
Deonte’ Dixon, Ave Maria
Armand Shoon, St. Thomas
Josh Ellis, Warner
CJ Reese, Southeastern
Kristers Zeidaks, St. Thomas
Nick Macon, Warner
All-Defensive Team
Mikon Hewitt, St. Thomas
AJ Lamb, Warner
Nick Macon, Warner
Brice Jenkins, Keiser
Davon Williams, Florida Memorial
Player of the Year
Warren Hall, Warner
Defensive Player of the Year
Mikon Hewitt, St. Thomas
Freshman of the Year
Jeremy Oppenheimer, Southeastern
Newcomer of the Year
Charlie Ned-Araujo, Florida Memorial
Champions of Character Award
AJ Lamb, Warner
Coach of the Year
Artis Maddox, Florida Memorial
All-Academic Team
Michael O’Donnell, Ave Maria
Evens Jacques, Florida Memorial
Andrija Sarenac, Keiser
Stefan Zecevic, Keiser
Matt Mckewin, Keiser
Forrest Freeland, Thomas
Hunter Jump, Warner
Andrew Lamb, Warner
Albert Coderch Porras, Webber International
McDonald Jean-Louis, Webber International