LANCASTER, Pa. – Three Ursinus College men's basketball players were named to the All-Centennial Conference Team, the league office announced Tuesday morning.
Senior guard Matt Knowles received first team recognition, while junior forward Zach Quattro was selected to the second team and sophomore guard Eric Williams Jr. garnered honorable mention. The Bears' three all-conference selections, all of them first-time honorees, are the most for the program since netting three in 2010, and are tied for the most since placing four on the squad in 2008.
Knowles turned in a sensational swan song, leading the team and ranking third in the conference in scoring at 16.6 points per game. He led the league in free throws made (103) while placing third in field goals made (142) and fourth in both 3-pointers (60) and free-throw percentage (81.1). Knowles paced the Bears with 31 steals and scored at least 20 points on ten occasions this season, including a career-high 30 at Swarthmore on February 8; he poured in a game-high 22 in the Bears' CC semifinal loss at Swarthmore last week.
Knowles, who finished his career with 939 points, is the first Ursinus player to earn a first team all-conference nod since Jon Ward in 2012. He was also named to the All-CC Sportsmanship Team.
Quattro joined the program as a transfer from Division II Le Moyne and made an immediate impact, starting all 27 games as a versatile stretch forward. He was the team's leading rebounder (6.9 RPG) and shot-blocker (30) and third-leading scorer (12.4 PPG), shooting 44.4 percent from 3-point range to land second in the CC. Quattro, who was second in the conference with six double-doubles, shot 47.4 percent overall and 78.9 percent from the foul line.
Williams continued to hold his place as one of the conference's most deadly shooters, ranking second with 76 3-pointers made and seventh at 42.2 percent from long range. The marksman, who made at least one triple in 17 consecutive games to end the season, has already drained 140 of them in his first two years. Williams averaged 12.8 points per game to place second on the team, and he had some eye-popping games: 30 points on 6 of 9 from deep at Franklin & Marshall, 29 points on nine 3-pointers in a triple-overtime win at Muhlenberg, and 29 more against Dickinson. He canned at least four treys in ten different contests.
Williams is the first Ursinus sophomore to make the all-conference team since Ward in 2011.
The men's basketball team finished the 2016-17 campaign at 15-12 overall and 11-7 in conference play, reaching the CC playoffs for the first time in six years and scoring a 78-64 victory at Johns Hopkins in the first round, their first postseason triumph since 2008, before falling at eventual league champion Swarthmore in the semifinals.