The McNeese Cowboys swept the top three superlative Southland Conference postseason awards when the all-conference teams were announced on Friday afternoon.
Javohn Garcia was named the league’s Player of the Year, Christan Shumate won Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season and Will Wade was named the conference’s Coach of the Year.
Garcia also garnered all-conference first-team honors while Shumate and Quadir Copeland were placed on second team.
It’s the first time in school history McNeese has had the league’s player of the year as Shahada Wells won the award last year. It’s also the second time a head coach has captured the top honor in back-to-back years (Ron Everhart in 2001 and Tic Price in 2002).
Shumate becomes the first player in league history to garner the Defensive Player of the Year honors for in multiple seasons.
Garcia was the most efficient player in the league this season. He helped guide McNeese to its second-consecutive regular season conference championship with a 25-6 overall record, 19-1 in league play, and the top seed in the postseason tournament hosted at the Legacy Center.
He enters with a team-high 12.6 scoring average and 21 games of 10+ points. He’s scored 20 or more points five times this year and had back-to-back games scoring 24 points at East Texas A&M (Jan. 4) and 25 against Nicholls (Jan. 11) for which he was named the league’s Player of the Week. The Columbus, Ohio native garnered his 1,000th career point against Northwestern State earlier this season.
Shumate averaged 6.4 rebounds, 1.3 blocked shots, and 10.5 points per game. During the season, he became the first player in school history to record 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 100 steals, 100 assists, and 100 blocked shots in a single season. He also set a career school record with 132 games played. He also holds the school record with 39 double doubles in his career and ranks third all-time in league history.
Copeland led McNeese in assists (138) and assists per game (4.5) while ranked second in the league in both categories. The junior from Philadelphia averaged a league-high 5.8 assists during SLC play.
McNeese will begin play in the 2025 Southland Conference Tournament on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the semifinal round against either Northwestern State, A&M-Corpus Christi or HCU.T