College Men’s Basketball News – Guilford’s McCarthy Named ODAC’s Top Player

SALEM, Va. – Guilford College senior Matt McCarthy (Rockville, Md./Our Lady of Good Counsel) earned the Kurt Axe Memorial Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Men’s Basketball Player of the Year Award Wednesday night at the league’s annual tournament banquet at the Salem Civic Center. He joins two-time winner Ben Strong ’08 and Tyler Sanborn ’10 as the three Quakers honored with the ODAC’s top honor.


Matt McCarthy

McCarthy was one of six students selected to the first-team all-league squad. Guilford senior Jonny Rice (Fayetteville, N.C./Terry Sanford (Washington and Lee)) was one of six students named Second Team All-ODAC.

McCarthy, a 6-3, 185-pound shooting guard, leads Guilford and ranks fifth in the league with 16.6 points per game. He tops the conference and ranks fifth nationally with 88 three-point field goals this year, the third-best total in school history. McCarthy has eight 20-point games this season, including a career-high 44-point showing in the Quakers’ Jan. 28 overtime win at Emory & Henry College, Guilford’s highest scoring game since 2007.

In addition to his scoring prowess from long distance, McCarthy boasts the league’s fifth-best free-throw shooting percentage (.805) and ranks third in the loop with 47 steals. He has a team-best 72 assists, the league’s 11th-highest total, and stands seventh in the conference with a 2.3 assist-to-turnover ratio.

For his career, McCarthy has scored 1,283 career points and ranks among the Quakers’ top-three all-time leaders in three-pointers (263) and three-pointers attempted (704). Guilford’s third three-time All-ODAC pick, McCarthy was a third-team all-league honoree in 2013 and a second-team selection in 2014.


Jonny Rice

Rice, a 6-4, 205-pound senior forward, joined the Quakers’ basketball team last fall after starting his college career at league-rival Washington and Lee University. Rice ranks second on the team and seventh in the league in scoring (14.8 ppg.). He is fourth among ODAC rebounding leaders (8.0 rpg.) and makes 50.5% of his shots from the floor, the ODAC’s ninth-best average. Rice stands third in the league with eight double-doubles and has scored at least 10 points in 22 of 25 games, including a career-high 28-point effort in the Jan. 28 win at Emory & Henry.

Rice is also an accomplished student who earned NCAA Division III Capital One Academic All District V laurels earlier this month from the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Coach Tom Palombo’s Quakers (17-8) earned the third seed for this week’s ODAC Tournament for the second straight season. Guilford earned a first-round tournament bye and opens play Thursday (2/26) at 8:00 p.m. versus sixth-seeded Hampden-Sydney College.