Bridgewater, NJ — Six seats will be reserved for NEC hoopers at the 93rd MBWA All-Met Haggerty Awards dinner on Thursday in Tarrytown, NY, as five student-athletes and one head coach are set to be honored by the esteemed Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association.
 
Headlining the sextet is FDU head coach and reigning Brenda Reilly NEC Coach of the Year Stehanie Gaitley, who was pegged the women’s All-Met Coach of the Year. Standing alongside the Knights’ skipper on the awards podium was FDU sophomore guard Ava Renninger (Yardley, PA/Archbishop Wood), who earned a spot on the All-Met women’s first team one year after she landed third team distinction. Also taking home All-Met first team distinction on the women’s side was LIU senior forward Kadidia Toure (Silver Spring, MD/Our Lady of Good Counsel (Arizona State)).
 
On the men’s side, LIU landed a pair of honorees after graduate guard Jamal Fuller (Toronto, Ontario/Central Technical School (Academy of Art)) walked away with All-Met second team plaudits and redshirt senior guard Malachi Davis (Scarborough, Ontario/Central Tech (Arizona State)) earned a nod to the organization’s Honorable Mention list. Rounding out the honorees was Wagner junior guard Nick Jones (Edgewood, MD/Parkville (Harcum College)), who was named to the All-Met third team.
 
Fresh off her third career Brenda Reilly NEC Coach of the Year award, Gaitley has now been pegged the MBWA Maggie Dixon Coach of the Year for the fourth time. The veteran skipper previously won the award three time while at Fordham in 2013, 2018 and 2019. Gaitley led FDU to back-to-back NEC titles and NCAA Tournament appearances along with guiding the Knights to a conference-record 30 wins and a perfect 18-0 league slate in 2025-26. FDU became the second team in NEC history to register back-to-back unbeaten conference seasons, but the only one to end each of those campaigns with NEC Tournament titles. Gaitley’s squad, which finished the year with the second-best scoring defense in the country, was also just one of three teams nationally to go unbeaten in conference play (UConn and UCLA).
 
Renninger, the 2025 NEC Rookie of the Year, made it two straight All-NEC first team selections this season after averaging 12.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and a conference-best 5.2 assists per game. The 5-6 guard was key in the Knights’ quest for a repeat as NEC champs, helping lead FDU to another perfect conference season and back-to-back campaigns with unblemished records against league foes. Additionally, Renninger was selected to the All-Met Third Team a year ago during her freshman season. The “General” was a three-time NEC Player of the Week winner.
 
Taking the conference by storm, Toure made some major noise by landing multiple NEC accolades in her debut season in the league. The senior transfer was named the NEC Player of the Year and NEC Newcomer of the Year, while also earning spots on the All-NEC first team and the All-Defensive team. Toure led the circuit in scoring (19.2), rebounding (10.4), blocks (1.4) and defensive rebounding (7.1). The three-time NEC Player of the Week helped guide the Sharks to its highest conference win total (14) and first NEC tournament title game appearance in 16 years. 
 
Fuller, who upgraded his All-NEC status from second team in 2024-25 to first team in 2025-26, guided LIU to the program’s seventh NEC regular season crown, seventh NEC Tournament title and eighth NCAA Tournament appearance this past season. Alongside fellow backcourt member Davis, the two-time NEC Player of the Week was the centerpiece of a trio of Sharks that was rightfully nicknamed the three-headed monster after he ranked fourth in the conference with a team-leading 16.2 points per night. Fuller was the epitome of a three-way scorer with a stout mid-range game, a lethal ability to shred defenders off the dribble and a consistent stroke from long range. He closed out the year shooting 51.8 percent from the field, 77.1 percent from the line and 43.0 percent from distance, all marks that ranked within the league’s top five. 
 
Jones, a high-flying 6-2 guard, made a splash in his debut campaign with the Seahawks. Walking away with All-NEC second team plaudits when the dust settled on the 2025-26 regular season, the transfer from Harcum College paced Wagner’s offense and was seventh in the conference in scoring after putting up 14.9 points per night. The catalyst of Jones’ attack was the junior’s tenacity on the other side of the ball, as his NEC-leading 1.8 steals per contest translated to countless fast-break buckets — and electrifying dunks — for his squad. Jones erupted for 20-or-more points eight times, including an explosive 35-point outing in a double-overtime win at Manhattan and an impressive 27-point game in the Seahawks’ final game of the year, a hard-fought defeat to eventual tournament champ LIU in the semifinals.
 
After transferring from Arizona State for the 2024-25 campaign and wasting no time in establishing himself as LIU’s go-to scorer and one of the NEC’s toughest covers, Davis lived up to the hype once again in his second season in Brooklyn. An elite athlete with a deep arsenal of hesitation and spin moves, the two-time first team All-NEC combo guard was a key component to a Sharks’ campaign that yielded the program’s first NEC regular season crown since 2012 and its first NEC Tournament title since 2018. Earning a pair of NEC Player of the Week honors and finishing the season as the league’s eighth-leading scorer at 14.0 points per night, the versatile performer also ranked among NEC leaders in field goal percentage (.412 – 12th), assists (3.4 – 3rd), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.2 – 10th) and steals (1.2 – 12th).