The
U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) will introduce a NCAA Division III National Basketball Player of the Week Award this season for both men's and women's basketball.
The announcement of winners will be circulated by the USBWA on Tuesday afternoons throughout the season, beginning next week on December 8. Nominations will come directly from NCAA Division III conference offices.
Nominations submitted by sports information directors for the weekly conference player of the week (POW) awards will be used in the national player of the week selection process. For Division III institutions who play an independent schedule, they will submit nominations separately.
There are four D3 regional committees which will only consider conference POWs for the weekly national awards. A regional nominee will be selected from among all the conference honorees, and those student-athletes will then be considered along with the other regional choices for the national honor.
The proposal to create the Division III national honor was initiated by
Jeff Bernstein, New York University Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information. Bernstein, who served as ECAC-SIDA President several years ago, is an active member of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association, serving on its Board of Directors.
Bernstein with chair a Division III selection committee comprised of CoSIDA members, including: Mark Adkins of Manchester University, Amie Canfield (Mount Holyoke College), Stacy Curry (Rhodes College), Chris Mitchell (Washington University in St. Louis), Kristian Martin of Lewis & Clark College, John Neves (Baruch College), Justin Parker of Trinity (Tex.) University, and Lenny Reich of the University of Mount Union.
In an email to CoSIDA's Division III members, Bernstein commented that "The USBWA has been choosing Division I Men’s and Women’s Players of the Week for many years, but this is the first time it is being done for Division III. This is a terrific opportunity for our student-athletes to be recognized nationally alongside their Division I brothers and sisters. What’s probably most exciting for DIII SIDs is that there won’t be any extra nomination forms for you to fill out, as nominees will come directly from the conference offices (unless an institution is an independent, which will nominate separately)."
Any questions or concerns about this new USBWA Division III award can be sent directly to Bernstein at
jmb14@nyu.edu.