March 2, 2009
* Patriot League Tournament Gets Underway Wednesday
CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- Navy senior guard Kaleo Kina and junior guard Chris Harris have been named to the All-Patriot League team, the league office announced this morning. Kina was a first-team selection, while Harris garnered second-team honors.
Kina was recognized for the first time, while Harris earns his second straight second-team citation, after being named to the second team as a sophomore a year ago.
Headlining the first team was Kina, American's Derrick Mercer and Garrison Carr, Holy Cross sophomore Andrew Keister and Lehigh junior Marquis Hall. Mercer was selected as the Player of the Year.
Kina has had an outstanding senior season, leading the Mids to a third-place Patriot League finish and a 19-10 overall mark, heading into Wednesday's quarterfinal contest against Colgate at Alumni Hall. Kina is the league's leading scorer (17.9 ppg) and ranks in the top 10 in rebounding (5.6 rpg), assists (3.8 apg) and steals (1.4 spg). He is the only player in school history to record 500 points, 100 rebounds and 100 assists in a season (and one of seven players nationally this season), as well as the only player in the Navy annals with 1,500 career points and 300 career assists. To top it off, he is one of nine players nationally to lead their team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals.
Kina has scored 1,505 career points (7th), grabbed 467 career rebounds, dished out 390 assists (6th) and grabbed 182 career steals (3rd), while playing in all 117 games, the fifth most in school history, with 104 starts, the fourth most ever at Navy. He has scored in double figure 26 times this year and has 77 career double-figure efforts, including a career-high 30 points earlier this year in a win over Radford. Kina has 10 games of 20 or more points this year.
Harris is a repeat selection on the second team, averaging 15.7 ppg, the third-highest mark in the Patriot League. Harris leads the team with 84 three-pointers, the second most in a season in school history, just seven behind the school-record 91 treys he hit last year. In addition, Harris ranks in the league's top five in free throw percentage, as he has connected on 105-of-123 free throw attempts this year (.854) and has two different consecutive free throws made streaks of 24 and 23, respectively, to rank in the Navy top 10 in that category.
Harris enters Wednesday's quarterfinal game with Colgate needing just five points to become the 19th player in school history with 1,000 points and reaching that mark would make him the first player in school history to have 1,000 points and 200 assists by the end of his junior year. In addition, Harris has 199 career three-pointers, needing just two more to tie Michael Heary for second place on the career three-pointers made list.
Harris was joined on the second team by Bucknell junior Patrick Behan, Lehigh junior Zahir Carrington, American senior Brian Gilmore and Army junior Cleveland Richard.
In addition to Mercer earning league Player of the Year honors, Army's Marcus Nelson was named Defensive Player of the Year, Holy Cross' R.J. Evans was the Rookie of Year and Coach of the Year honors went to American's Jeff Jones.
Navy will host Colgate in the Patriot League Quarterfinals on Wednesday night at 7:00 pm in Alumni Hall. For ticket information, call 1-800-US4-NAVY.
# GO NAVY #
