ST. LOUIS – Adding an unprecedented honor to his recent list on Tuesday, Montana State University Billings men's basketball senior Marc Matthews was named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Division II National Player of the Week.
 
A senior guard for the Yellowjackets, Matthews is fresh off of his second Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Week award of the season, after helping MSUB to a pair of conference road wins over Simon Fraser University and No. 19 Western Washington University.
 
"This is a great honor for Marc to be recognized not only in our region but nationally," said MSUB head coach Jamie Stevens, whose Yellowjackets were also picked as the GNAC Team of the Week on Monday. "A lot of these individual honors we have been receiving are really team awards, and I think the guys realize that any individual success happens because of teammates."
 
Matthews made 17 of 28 shots from the field (60.7 percent), including 10 of 18 shots from 3-point range (55.6 percent), helping MSUB to a 107-66 win over Simon Fraser on Thursday and a 100-93 win over No. 19 Western Washington on New Year's Eve.
 
In addition to Matthews' offensive excellence, he totaled 13 rebounds and led the team with eight in the win over the Vikings. Matthews added nine assists, five steals, and one block, and only turned the ball over two times in 62 minutes on the court in the two games.
 
On the season, the senior is averaging 15.8 points per game, and is now in 10th place in the GNAC in scoring. He currently owns a streak of four straight 20-point games, a feat achieved by just five other players in the GNAC so far this season. He ranks second in the league with 38 total made threes and an average of 3.2 per game.
 
"Right now, Marc is playing at an extremely high level," Stevens said. "Marc is shooting the ball well, but he is also doing a lot of little things on the defensive end."
 
MSUB Men's Basketball All-Time Scoring Leaders

Rank	Name	Points
1.	Roy McPipe	1883
2.	Cameron Munoz	1879
3.	Les Heins	1726
4.	Jim Soft	1558
5.	Bart Bauer	1547
6.	Markus Hallgrimson	1470
7.	Titus Warmsley	1467
8.	Mark Hamilton	1463
9.	Reece Gliko	1388
10.	Buddy Windy Boy	1278
17.	Ty Elkin	1102
	Freeman Blade	1102
19.	Kas Ioane	1048
20.	Marc Matthews	1046

 
Matthews earned GNAC Player of the Week honors for the week of Dec. 5-11, after scoring 49 total points in a pair of wins for the Yellowjackets. MSUB has now won three of the last four GNAC Player of the Week awards, as sophomore Preston Beverly received the honor after helping the team to three road wins the week of Nov. 21-27.
 
MSUB (8-4, 3-1 GNAC) has won seven of its last eight games and enters the week in a three-way tie for first place in the GNAC standings. The Yellowjackets begin a four-game home stand by hosting conference opponents Central Washington University on Thursday and Northwest Nazarene University on Saturday at Alterowitz Gym. Both games tip off at 7 p.m.