GUILFORD’S TYLER SANBORN NAMED NABC DIVISION III PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Clay Henson Earns First-Team All-South Honors
**Greensboro, N.C. – *The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC)
named Guilford College’s *Tyler Sanborn (Mount Airy, N.C./Elkin)* as its
NCAA Division III Player of the Year Wednesday. Teammate *Clay Henson (Glen
Alpine, N.C./Freedom)* earned NABC First Team All-South Region honors for
the second straight season. *Sanborn *joins former teammate *Ben Strong ’08
*as Guilford winners of the NABC’s top honor. *Strong *shared the NABC’s
2007 National Player of the Year Award with Amherst College’s Andrew Olson.
A committee of NABC members selected the national award winners from the top
vote-getters in each of the NABC’s eight regions. Each of the top
vote-getters received NABC First Team All-America and regional player of the
year honors. *Sanborn*, a second team all-region pick in 2009, represented
the south region.
*Sanborn *will be recognized Apr. 4 at the annual AT&T NABC Guardians of the
Game Awards Show at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis. The 6:00 p.m. awards
show is held in conjunction with the NABC Convention and the NCAA Division I
Men’s Basketball Final Four.
The announcement marks *Sanborn’s *second national player of the year award,
as he won the *DIII News *Player of the Year honor Mar. 22. The 6-10 senior
center had 30 double-doubles and averaged 19.8 points, 14.1 rebounds and 2.0
blocks in 33 games. He ranked 44th among Division III leaders in scoring,
third in rebounding, ninth in field-goal percentage (.643) and 38th in
blocks per game. *Sanborn *won the Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s (ODAC)
Kurt Axe Player of the Year Award and was a three-time ODAC Player of the
Week. His 655 points rank eighth in school history and his field-goal
percentage stands third all-time. He earned All-NCAA Tournament honors and
averaged 21.8 points and a tourney-best 16.6 rebounds over five games. *Sanborn
*hit for a career-high 29 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in Guilford’s Jan.
27 win at Roanoke College, one of his 18 contests with at least 20 points.
He grabbed a career-high 23 boards and scored a team-best 21 points in the
Quakers’ NCAA sectional-round win over the College of Wooster.
A two-time D3hoops.com All-American and First Team All-ODAC pick, *Sanborn *is
Guilford’s sixth men’s basketball player to compile 1,000 points and
rebounds in his career. He stands 16th among the Quakers’ career scoring
leaders (1,398), fourth in rebounds (1,133) and third in blocks (200). *Sanborn
*averaged 4.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game his first two seasons as *Strong’s*backup.
*Henson*, a 6-2 senior guard, averaged 17.8 points per game and set school
records for three-pointers (98) and three-point attempts (267) in a season.
A 2010 *DIII News *Third Team All-American, he earned Third Team All-South
honors from D3hoops.com and his second straight First Team All-ODAC honor
this year. *Henson *ranked 93rd in the nation in scoring, 16th in
three-pointers per game (3.0) and 54th in three-point field goal percentage
(.367). He averaged a team-high 3.12 assists per game, along with 3.3
rebounds and 1.2 steals per outing. *Henson *scored in double figures in all
but three games over his last two campaigns, including 14 20-point outings
this year.* *He netted a season-high 30 points in wins over Roanoke (Jan.
18) and Lynchburg College (Feb. 13) and made eight three-pointers in both
contests, one shy of his school record.*
*A three-year starter, *Henson *concluded his career with 1,717 career
points, which ranks ninth in school history, and holds the Guilford
standards for career three-pointers made (287) and attempted (774). His 123
career games rank second in school history and he stands fifth among the
Quakers’ career leaders in assists (329) and steals (121).
The pair helped coach *Tom Palombo’s* Quakers to a 30-3 overall record and
their second straight third-place finish in the NCAA Tournament. Guilford’s
97-88 NCAA tourney semifinal loss to Williams College Mar. 19 snapped an
11-game winning streak, which included the club’s second ODAC Tournament
crown in three years. The Quakers posted the best regular-season mark (23-2)
in the program’s distinguished history and ended the campaign ranked third
in the final D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll. Guilford enjoyed a 15-game winning
streak this season and two weeks as the top team in the D3hoops.com poll.
Guilford’s record of 104-19 gives the Quakers the highest four-year winning
percentage (.846) among four-year college men’s basketball teams in the
state of North Carolina (all divisions).
Dave Walters
Guilford College Athletics