Senior Ashley Durham was named to the All-MAAC First Team on Monday
afternoon while freshman Tiahana Mills
was named to the MAAC All-Rookie Team. The honors were voted on by the league's
coaches.
Durham is now eligible to be named the Pepsi Max Player
of the Year and Mills is now eligible to be named the MAAC Rookie of the Year,
which will be announced at the Postseason Awards Show, held in the Basketball
Hall of Fame. The ceremony starts at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night.
Durham, who is the first Golden Griffin to earn
First-Team honors since Marie Warner in 2009, ranked fifth in the MAAC with a
14.6 scoring average in conference play. In 28 games this season, the 5-foot-5
guard leads Canisius with a 11.6 scoring average on the season, including a
career-best 35.3 3-point field goal percentage. Durham ranks in the top 10
nationally in free-throw percentage at 90.0 percent. The Millville, N.J. native
reached double figures a team-best 16 times and became the 20th
player in program history to score 1,000 career points. Durham earned MAAC
Player of the Week honors on Jan. 7.
Mills started the first 26 games of the season before
suffering an ankle injury that has caused the Binghamton, N.Y. native to miss
the final three games of the regular season. Mills averaged 4.3 points and led
all MAAC freshmen at 2.7 assists per game, recording 25 more assists than any
other freshman in the conference. In the first conference game of the season,
Mills drained a half-court buzzer-beater to defeat Siena and earned the No. 1
spot in the Top Plays segment on ESPN's SportsCenter.
Mills becomes
the eighth freshman in the last eight years under Zeh to earn MAAC All-Rookie
Team honors, the highest total in the conference and two more than any other MAAC school. Canisius has had a freshman
named to the All-Rookie Team in seven of the last eight seasons, the only MAAC
school to claim that distinction.
Canisius opens play in the 2013 MAAC Championship at noon
on Thursday, held at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Mass. The No. 7 seed
Golden Griffins will face No. 10 Saint Peter's for the second consecutive year
in the first round of the single-elimination, 10-team tournament.
For information on MAAC Championship tickets, contact the
Canisius Ticket Office at 716-888-2885.
