Sophomore swingman DANA JOHN (Hillside, NJ/Pocono Mountain, PA) has been named the NJCU Men's Athlete of the Week for the third time this season and the third time in his career and was named the New Jersey Athletic Conference Player of the Week for the second time in seven weeks.
The NJAC Player of the Week award is for week seven of the 2006-07 season, and marks the second time in his career that John—the leading scorer in the conference—has received the honor, previously taking home the award on November 20, during week one of the year.
After not playing in NJCU’s 76-62 loss to Albright College on December 29 in the opening round of the Hampden-Sydney College Holiday Hoops Tournament, John notched a career-high 28 points in just 29 minutes on 10-of-15 shooting and 5-of-10 three-pointers, in NJCU’s historic 120-113 double overtime loss at Hampden Sydney College on December 30.
Despite being NJCU’s first loss in history when scoring 100+, it was the play of John which helped the Gothic Knights turn a 15-point setback into a seven-point second half lead. John also added five rebounds, four steals and two blocks before fouling out in the early stages of the second overtime. NJCU was outscored 13-4 in the second extra period without John on the floor.
The 28 points by John eclipsed his previous career high of 27 accomplished twice. He has now scored at least 20 five times in his career and the Knights are 3-2 in those games, and he has netted 25 or more four times. Amazingly, John scored 25 points after halftime as he only played three minutes in the opening period after picking up two fouls.
In the loss, the Knights trailed by 10 at halftime. Down by eight in the second half, John hit a three and proceeded to score seven straight points for the Knights who drew within one, 64-63 with 12:15 remaining. A John three at 10:18 made it 71-69, and he continued with his hot shooting, as he scored 14 of 16 points for NJCU in the middle of the second half. His steal and fast-break two-handed dunk made it 73-70, and his layup with 8:32 left put the Knights ahead 75-72.
In the first overtime, John hit his second three-pointer of the extra period with 50 seconds remaining to give NJCU a 104-101 advantage.
On the season in 10 games, John leads NJCU in scoring at 18.7 per game (187 points), and has added 5.1 rebounds (13-38-51), 2.2 steals (22), 1.6 assists (16) and 0.9 blocks (9) per game while shooting 43.8 percent from the field (64-146), 38.3 from three-point range (31-81) and 77.8 from the free throw line (28-36).
Among the NJAC statistical leaders, he is the league leader in three pointers made overall and per game (3.10) and tied for first in scoring average and total points with Rowan University’s Matt Byrnes. He is also tied for fourth in free throw percentage, sixth in steals per game, seventh in blocks, eighth in three-point percentage, tied for 14th in defensive rebounding (3.80/game), and tied for 18th in rebounding average.
