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Bridgewater, NJ -- With March upon us, the spotlight turns to the stars who shaped the 2025-26 NEC men’s basketball season.
Leading the way is a sophomore forward whose climb from rising star to the league’s premier player makes him the headliner of this year’s major award recipients.
Making an incredible transformation from a promising All-Rookie freshman campaign to unstoppable scorer, Central Connecticut sophomore forward
Darin Smith, Jr. (Springfield, MA/Vermont Academy) brought the league’s most prized individual award back to New Britain for a second-straight season. With his crowning, the Blue Devils, who ended a 14-year hiatus on the NEC Player of the Year podium last season thanks to Jordan Jones, have produced the league’s top player in back-to-back years for the first time in program history.
Smith wasn’t flying solo on the awards’ stand for CCSU. Joining him was junior forward
Max Frazier (Pittsboro, NC/Northwood (Siena)), who brought his game to an entirely new level in 2025-26 to win the league’s Most Improved Player honor.
With the program’s first regular-season title banner since 2011-12 set to be lifted in the rafters, the lights are shining bright in Brooklyn for LIU. The Sharks have the postseason hardware to prove it, as
Greg Gordon (Chicago, IL/Lincoln Park (UAB/Iona/Dyersburg State CC) was named the NEC Defensive Player of the Year while fourth-year head coach
Rod Strickland was voted the Jim Phelan Coach of the Year by his peers.
FDU, which is postseason bound for a fifth-straight year, also got in on the major awards action as well after first-year guard
David Jevtic (Belgrade, Serbia/KK Kolubara Lazarevac 2003) made an instant splash to claim NEC Rookie of the Year accolades.
The award recipients were announced on the eve of the 2026 NEC Men’s Basketball Tournament, which begins with quarterfinal round play at campus sites on Wednesday.
Any skepticism from the Central Connecticut faithful due to the graduation of 2024-25 NEC Player of the Year Jordan Jones was quickly silenced by Smith. The forward, who landed All-Rookie Team honors a year ago with a 6.8 point-per-game average, proved that his season-opening 20-point outing was no fluke. Eclipsing the 20-point plateau a whopping 16 more times — including a 38-point effort in an overtime win over Sacred Heart (Nov. 24) and a 40-point explosion at New Haven (Feb. 12) — Smith, who’s 13.7-point boost from 2024-25 to 2025-26 is currently the fourth-best scoring jump in NEC annals, coasted to the top of the league statistics with his 20.4 points per game. In the process, he became the first Blue Devil to be crowned the NEC’s scoring champion since Kyle Vinales in 2012-13.
Smith’s ability to score at all three levels, create for teammates and control the tempo made him one of the most dangerous — and most complete — players in the league. Among the nation’s top bucket-getters, the Springfield, MA native is tied for 28
th in point production, while his scoring clip is third best among all Division I sophomores. In addition, Smith, who registered more trips and makes from the charity stripe than any other NEC baller this season, checks in at No. 12 in the nation in free throw percentage with a 90.0 percent conversion rate.
Closing out the regular season with 24- and 22-point performances against Mercyhurst (Feb. 26) and Saint Francis (Feb. 28), respectively, to help the Blue Devils secure a top-two seed in the NEC Tournament for a third-straight year, Smith was pegged the NEC Player of the Week for the sixth time on Monday, which tied the NEC single-season record. The elite bucket getter also walked away with All-NEC First Team honors.
He now stands alongside a legendary group of Central Connecticut NEC Player of the Year winners, becoming the seventh Blue Devil to earn the honor.
Frazier made a significant leap this season for Central Connecticut, emerging as one of the most impactful bigs in the NEC. After playing a limited role for the Blue Devils during their regular-season championship campaign in 2024-25, the Tar Heel State product became a consistent difference maker for his squad. Elevating his scoring efficiency thanks in part to his signature, high-flying alley-oop throwdowns while becoming an impenetrable defensive force, Frazier set the tone for Central Connecticut with his ability to impact games on both ends of the court night in and night out. In making the jump, Frazier raised his scoring average from 3.1 points per game in 2024-25 to 12.1 points per night in 2025-26 behind a sizzling — and league-leading — 65.9 percent accuracy rate from the field. His scoring jump marked the NEC’s second biggest this season behind fellow teammate Smith. Defensively, his rebounding production more than doubled to 7.3 boards per contest, a clip that ranks fourth on the circuit. The 6-9 forward was also one of the NEC’s most-feared rim protectors, ranking second with 1.7 rejections per game after swatting 27 more shots than last season’s total of 22.
In the 17-year history of the NEC Most Improved Player accolade, Frazier, who tripled his postseason hardware by also earning spots on the All-NEC Third Team and the All-Defensive Team, became the second Blue Devil to earn the honor. Matt Mobley was the first to claim the award in 2014-15.
Jevtic, who claimed a league-leading four NEC Rookie of the Week honors, produced at a level that stood out among first-year players in the NEC this season. A consistent point-getter, his 6-8 stature as a member of the Knights’ backcourt not only made him tough to guard on the perimeter; it gave him an edge on the glass as well. Jevtic, who sported six double-figure scoring games, a 6.5 point-per-game average and a 3.3 rebound-per-game clip, knocked down 27 three-pointers for an FDU squad that topped the conference with 249 long-range makes and 8.0 triples per contest. The Belgrade, Serbia native worked his way into the starting lineup for seven consecutive games, a stretch that saw the Knights knock off four league opponents in the second half of the regular season.
Just three other FDU freshmen — Anquan Hill (2021-22), along with all-time greats Rahshon Turner (1994-95) and Desi Wilson (1988-89) — have been named the NEC Rookie of the Year since the league’s inaugural season in 1982-83.
Jevtic put another feather in his cap when he was one of five first-year players to garner All-Rookie Team distinction.
Defense was the key to a successful season for LIU and thanks to Gordon’s tenacious nature on that end of the court, the Sharks delivered. Tasked with the toughest defensive assignments on the regular, his ability to disrupt passing lanes and menace ball handlers set the tone for LIU’s defense-first identity all season, often turning stops into live ball turnovers and instant transition offense. Standing at 6-5, Gordon’s versatility allowed him to guard multiple positions, which made him invaluable in late-game situations. Most impressively, the guard from the Windy City was just one of two NEC ballers to rank inside the league’s top-10 in scoring (13.7 ppg – t-10th in NEC), rebounds (5.6 rpg – t-9th) steals (1.7 spg – 3rd) and blocks (0.8 per game – 8th) this season.
Gordon’s Defensive Player of the Year award was accompanied by All-NEC Second Team and All-Defensive Team plaudits.
In his fourth season at the helm, Strickland’s Sharks reached waters that had been uncharted by the Brooklyn squad in quite some time. It comes as no surprise that the former NBA All-Star point guard and New York City native once again cultivated one of the most dangerous — and top-scoring — backcourt trios in the league in Jamal Fuller, Malachi Davis and Gordon, who ranked fourth, seventh and 10th on the circuit, respectively, in points per game at season’s end.
That stellar guard play, flanked by an emphasis on defensive intensity, yielded the first 20-win season for the Sharks in nearly a decade. In addition, LIU downed 15 opponents during the league slate, the most since a 2011-12 campaign that saw the program go 16-2 en route to pulling off the sweep of the NEC regular season and NEC Tournament titles.
Strickland became the third LIU skipper to claim the Jim Phelan Coach of the Year honor, joining Ray Haskins (1996-97) and two-time recipient Jim Ferry (2004-05, 2010-11).
AWARD WINNER HIGHLIGHTS