NEW ORLEANS — Four members of the Xavier University of Louisiana men's basketball team received Gulf Coast Athletic Conference end-of-season awards Thursday, including major honors for Joseph Williams and Rayshawn Mart.
Williams was voted GCAC Defensive Player of the Year and, naturally, landed a spot on the All-Defensive team. Mart was named Freshman of the Year.
Teammates Jalen David and Virgil Davison made All-GCAC. David was on the first team, and Davison was on the second.
Williams, a 6-foot-6 senior forward from Memphis, Tenn., and a Lausanne Collegiate School graduate, leads the conference and ranks seventh in NAIA Division I with 1.8 blocked shots per game. His 42 blocks are the most by a Gold Rush player since Alex Williams — no relation — had 46 in 1986-87.
The recognition was the second this week for Williams. Tuesday he was announced as a landslide winner in online fan voting for next month's NABC-NAIA Shoot & Slam presented by U.S. Bank. Williams earned the fourth and final spot in the dunk contest.
Mart, a 6-3 guard from Houma, La., and a graduate of H.L. Bourgeois High School, is the third Gold Rush player to receive the GCAC freshman award, joining Shaun Dumas (2004-05) and Lucas Martin-Julien (2013-14). Mart leads GCAC freshmen this season with 11.2 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. Among all players he ranks 15th in the conference in scoring and 10th in rebounding.
David — a 6-4 senior guard/forward from Mount Vernon, N.Y., and a former Mount Vernon High School and Moberly Area (Mo.) Community College standout — is averaging 12.1 points and five rebounds through 29 games this season. David was second-team All-GCAC a year ago.
Davison, a 5-8 junior guard from Memphis and a former Hillcrest High School and Dyersburg State Community College standout, leads XULA with 13.9 points per game, and his 79 made 3-pointers are No. 4 on the XULA all-time season list.
Davison scored a game- and season-high 26 points Wednesday in a 74-62 home victory against Talladega that gave XULA a share of the GCAC regular-season championship with Dillard. The Gold Rush are 22-7 and ranked 25th nationally.
XULA is seeded second in the conference tournament and will play seventh seed Edward Waters in the first round at 5 p.m. Friday at Dillard's Dent Hall.
Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
XULAgold.com
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
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