NEW HAVEN, Conn. - - For the second week in a row and third week of January, the Wilmington University men's basketball team featured a student-athlete as the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Player of the Week, as Nick Richards was named a recipient as announced by the conference office on Monday.
Richards (New Castle/Hodgson Vo-Tech) was named the CACC defensive Player of the Week last Monday, but stepped up his offensive game in leading the Wildcats to a pair of wins last week. It is the first time in his career that Richards has been named the CACC Co-Player of the Week. He shares the award with Georgian Court's Niokla Vujovic.
The senior guard started the week with an unconscious 22 points in the first half at Holy Family, shooting 9-of-11 from the floor while also grabbing nine rebounds in the opening 20 minutes. He finished the game with 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting, grabbing 14 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive glass, for his third double-double of the year.
Although he poured in 14 points in the first half against Felician on Saturday, Richards put on a show for the home crowd in the final eight minutes of the second half. With the team trailing by three points, Richards scored 11 of the final 20 Wildcat points to lead the team to an 82-76 victory. He finished with 18 points in the second half, totaling a season's best 32 points in the game. He shot 13-of-20 from the floor, adding six rebounds, five assists, and a steal.
For the week, Richards averaged 28 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, and two steals per game, all while shooting at a 63.9 percent clip. He also made 3-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc while playing all 80 minutes last week.
Vujovic scored 20 points in a win over USciences before going for 33 points and 13 rebounds in a win over Nyack to share the award with Richards. Jefferson's Alexander Gorton was named the CACC Rookie of the Week while Caldwell's Eric Johnson-Alford was named the Defensive Player of the Week to round out the honors.
Richards will help lead the Wildcats into two more CACC games this week, as they head to USciences on Tuesday for a CACC South Division rematch. They will host Bloomfield on Saturday at the WU Athletics Complex at 3:00 p.m.