Grizzlies place three on All-RMAC squads
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— Three members of the Adams State College men’s basketball team have earned All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference honors, which were announced Wednesday by league officials after a vote of the conference’s 14 head coaches.
Junior Deray Wilson (Anchorage, Alaska) was named to the first team while fellow junior Marqus Richards (Los Angeles, Calif.) earned second team accolades. Senior Seth Heinbaugh (Prescott Valley, Ariz.), was tabbed to the third team.
Wilson, who played junior college ball at Northeastern (Colo.) in Sterling after a state-championship winning career at Anchorage’s West High School under now Grizzly assistant coach Chuck White, and Richards, who earned First Team All-Region IX honors while at Trinidad State Junior College, were newcomers to the Grizzly program this season.
Heinbaugh is a 4-year starter for the Grizzlies and eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for his career earlier this season.
Wilson is the first Grizzly to earn First Team accolades in three years (Rece Hampton) and just the third in the Grizzlies’ NCAA Division II era (1992-93/Present) history and has averaged 13.5 points per game thus far, the 15th best mark in the conference. He has also tallied 3.0 assists per game to rank 12th in the conference and 1.4 steals per game, tied with teammate Shayar Lee (Phoenix, Ariz.) for 15th most in the league. He also ranks 12th in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.0).
Wilson, a 5-foot-9, 190-pound shooting and point guard, has been on fire as of late scoring 20 or more points in each of the Grizzlies’ last four games. He has eight such efforts overall and tallied a career-high 30 while leading the Grizzlies past nationally-ranked Colorado Mines on Feb. 19, the Orediggers’ only loss in the last 12 games.
Richards, a 6-foot-4 guard and forward, leads the Grizzlies in scoring at 14.5 points per game and has grabbed 5.7 boards per contest. He ranks 11th and 15th in the RMAC in those respective categories. He also has claimed 45 steals this season, tied for seventh most in the conference and shot at a strong 50.2 percent clip from the field.
He also has eight 20-plus point efforts to his credit this season and paces the Grizzlies with five double-doubles, including such efforts in each of the Grizzlies’ last two games. He also earned RMAC Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week honors this year.
Heinbaugh, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound power forward, leads the Grizzlies in rebounding this year at 7.6 boards per game, the third best mark in the entire RMAC. He also averages 10.4 points per game and ranks fourth in the RMAC in field goal percentage at .565.
The Bradshaw Mountain High School product was twice named as the RMAC Defensive Player of the Week this season and ranks second in the RMAC in defensive rebounds.
In his career, Heinbaugh has scored 1,054 points, sixth most in the Grizzlies’ NCAA Division II history. He also has made 289 free throws, the second most of any in that time, and has 666 career rebounds, just one shy of equaling Ben Ellsworth for second most on the Grizzlies’ Division II era charts. He also has 194 career assists, seventh most in Division II history, and 74 career steals to rank 11th in the program’s Division II history.
He also ranks amongst the program’s top five in all three participation categories, logging 2,918 tough minutes in 109 games played, 82 of which he’s started. He is the only Grizzly to have started in all 27 games this season and has helped lead the Grizzlies to their first 20-win season in at least 38 years.
Heinbaugh, who has played for three head coaches in his time as a Grizzly, was also a redshirt on the Grizzlies’ 2007 RMAC West Division Championship and NCAA Division II Tournament qualifying team and was the team’s top freshman in 2007-08, a year in which the Grizzlies won a then NCAA Division II era school-record 18 games, a mark surpassed by this year’s squad that will play in the RMAC Shootout Semifinals on Friday.
Related Item: Complete All-RMAC Release
 |  |
 |
