AMHERST, N.Y. - Andrew Sischo (Guilderland, N.Y.) of Daemen College has been named the East Coast Conference Men's Basketball Rookie of the Week for games played February 19-25. The official announcement of ECC accolades was made via the league's weekly sport report which was released this afternoon from conference headquarters in West Babylon, N.Y. It marks the ninth time this season that Sischo has earned a weekly honor from the conference.
Sischo, a 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman center, averaged 17.5 points and 9.0 rebounds per game while leading the Wildcats to road wins over Long Island University Post (61-58) and New York Institute of Technology (92-68). Against LIU Post, Sischo canned 10-of-14 shots from the field and totaled team-highs of 23 points and nine rebounds. It was Sischo's seventh 20-point game of the season. He followed up with 12 points and nine boards in the win over NYIT, running his personal streak of double-figure scoring games to 20 games in a row - the longest streak for a Daemen player since former guard/forward Torrence Dyck (Rochester, N.Y.) did so in the final 24 games of his career during the 2015-16 season. Sischo is averaging 18.2 points on 60.3 percent shooting (155-for-257) during his streak.
For the season, Sischo has appeared in all 28 games while making 16 starts, and he leads all ECC freshmen and ranks sixth among the overall conference leaders in scoring (15.8 ppg). He also ranks among the league leaders in rebounding (8.4 rpg - second), made field goals (186 - third) and field goal percentage (57.8 - third). With 441 total points, Sischo has scored the most points for a Daemen freshman since Brian Montanaro's (Liverpool, N.Y.) 420 during the 2002-03 season.
Sischo had previously earned ECC Rookie of the Week honors for games played November 20-26, December 11-17, December 18-31, January 1-7, January 15-21, January 29-February 4 and February 5-11, and he was the ECC Co-Player of the Week for February 12-18. His eight Rookie of the Week selections this season are the most for any ECC player since former Molloy guard John Petrucelli, brother of Sischo's teammate Nick Petrucelli (Hicksville, N.Y.), earned nine selections during the 2010-11 season. Since the start of the 2015-16 campaign, Daemen players have earned 18 of the 46 Rookie of the Week selections named by the conference, more than double the next closest team (Molloy College has eight selections in that span).
Daemen, which is ranked in both the NCAA East Region poll and the D2SIDA East Region poll, closed the regular season at 21-7 overall and 15-3 in league play. The Wildcats have won at least 19 games in seven straight seasons, and they'll enter postseason play as one of the hottest teams in the country with wins in seven straight and 16 of their last 17 games. The Wildcats are the No. 3 seed in the upcoming East Coast Conference Championship Tournament, and they'll host No. 6 Roberts Wesleyan College (14-13, 7-11 ECC) in a first round game on Wednesday, February 28. The winner of Wednesday's game advances to the semifinal round to face No. 2 Saint Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday, March 3 in Rochester.
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