Bell Repeats As America East Player Of The Week
December 13, 2004 | Men's Basketball
BOSTON - For the second straight week, Boston University senior forward Rashad Bell (Queens, N.Y.) was selected as the America East Men's Basketball Player of the Week. In addition to averaging 18.5 points per game on 13-of-16 shooting, Bell became the 27th Terrier to score 1,000 points at the school.
B.U. (5-2, 1-0 America East) split a pair of games last week, drubbing Harvard, 92-55, on Dec. 7 and falling just short at Boston College, 80-74, on Dec. 11.
In the 37-point win over the Crimson, Bell scored 17 points, scoring his 1,001st career point on a steal and breakaway dunk eight minutes into the game. He joined 26 other Terriers in the team's 1,000 Point Club, which includes senior teammate Chaz Carr (Manchester, Conn.), who has 1,138 career points. He went 5-of-6 from the field and made 7-of-8 free throws. Against the Eagles, Bell scored 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting. For the week, he converted on 13-of-16 shots (81.2 percent).
Two blocked shots against Harvard moved him into a tie for third place on the Terriers' career blocked shots list with 78. He's tied with former Terrier Larry Jones ('88) and is 15 shy of second-place Jason Scott ('92), who had 93 blocks in his career. That'll be about it as far as moving up on the list, as Tunji Awojobi ('97) holds the top spot with an impressive 302 blocked shots.
Bell has scored in double-figures in 10 straight games, including the last three games last year. It's the second-longest current streak in America East, behind Taylor Coppenrath's 29-game streak for the University of Vermont.
The America East Player of the Week award is Bell's fifth during his B.U. career and his first back-to-back awards. He earned the award three times during a sophomore campaign in 2002-03 that saw him earn America East All-Conference First Team honors.
Among America East leaders, Bell is tied for first in blocked shots, averaging 1.86 blocks per game. After his 13-for-16 effort from the field last week, he has moved into the top spot in field goal percentage in America East, making 53.9 percent of his shots. He is seventh in scoring (16.6 ppg) and 10th in rebounding (5.9 rpg).
B.U. wraps up its six-game road trip when it travels to Ann Arbor, Mich. to face the University of Michigan on Tuesday, Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. The Terriers are then off for exams, returning to host Canisius on Thursday, Dec. 23 at 3 p.m.
