NEW YORK – James Patterson of St. Thomas Aquinas College has been named the All-Met Division II men’s college basketball Player of the Year for 2023-24 as announced Thursday by the Met Basketball Writers Association. Second-year head coach Matt Capell of St. Thomas Aquinas was named MBWA Coach of the Year for a second consecutive season. 

Patterson and Staten Island's Messiah Mallory were tabbed All-Met First Team selections while Sunnie Diamond of Queens and Bryce Waterman of Staten Island landed on the All-Met Second Team.
 
The 2023-24 All-Met teams will be honored at the 91st MBWA Haggerty Awards dinner on Thursday, April 18, at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel & Conference Center in Tarrytown, NY. The Haggerty dinner is the longest running, media-managed college basketball awards program in the United States.
 
A 6-7 sophomore guard-forward from Richmond, Va., Patterson - who also was named the East Coast Conference player of the year, along with selection to the NABC All-America First Team and D2CCA All-America Second Team - led the Spartans (25-6, 14-2 ECC) to the conference tournament championship and into the NCAA Tournament. 
 
An All-Met Second Team selection in 2023, Patterson this season led STAC with 23.9 points per game (No. 1 ECC, No. 4 in the nation); 743 total points (No. 1 ECC, No. 5 NCAA); 8.5 rebounds (No. 3 ECC, No. 38 Division II); and 57 total steals (No. 1 ECC, No. 40 NCAA). He shot 44.9% overall from the field, 35.9% from 3-point distance and 79.1% at the free throw line.
 
Patterson, who has surpassed the 1,000-point plateau in scoring in two seasons and now has 1,174, represents the 11th time a Spartan has been named MBWA Division II men’s player of the year.
 
Capell, who also is an Assistant Athletic Director at St. Thomas Aquinas, assumed the men’s head basketball reins for 2022-23 after serving as an assistant and then associate head coach for the previous nine years. He guided STAC this season (25-6, 14-2 ECC) to a fourth straight ECC regular season title (seventh in the past 10 seasons), fifth straight ECC Tournament crown (eighth in nine years) and a berth in the NCAA Division II Tournament for a ninth straight occasion. His two-season record as a head coach is 29-3 in the ECC and 51-11 overall (.823%)
 
St. Thomas Aquinas defeated Roberts Wesleyan this season in an ECC semifinal and then beat Daemen in the ECC championship game. The Spartans lost to Post in the NCAA East Regional.
 
This is the 13th time a STAC coach has been named MBWA Coach of the Year.
 
A native of Gasport, NY, Capell earned a Bachelors degree in 2002 from Alfred and a Masters degree at Mercyhurst. Prior to STAC, he was on the staffs at Mercyhurst, Hamilton, Clarkson and Alfred. He resides in Rockland County, NY.
 
For a list of previous MBWA Division II men’s Players of the Year: https://metbasketballwriters.org/sports/2014/2/5/DII_0205143251.aspx
 
For a list of previous MBWA Division II men’s Coaches of the Year: https://metbasketballwriters.org/sports/2014/2/5/DII_0205144132.aspx
 
FIRST TEAM
Tray Alexander, Pace 
Darnell Evans, Caldwell                       
Messiah Mallory, Staten Island                      
James Patterson, St. Thomas Aquinas   
Bryan Powell, Pace        
Dayshaun Walton, Adelphi         
 
SECOND TEAM 
Jaylen Colon, Felician        
Al Fatir Connor, Bloomfield  
Sunnie Diamond, Queens  
Elijah Lewis, Adelphi     
Bryce Waterman, Staten Island
 
PLAYER OF THE YEAR: James Patterson, St. Thomas Aquinas
COACH OF THE YEAR: Matt Capell, St. Thomas Aquinas