SEATTLE -- All-American
Chris Banchero's brilliant collegiate career was cut short by a knee injury suffered midway through his senior season with the Seattle Pacific men's basketball team.
The senior point guard had scored six straight points before being fouled under the Falcons basket with 12:52 left in the first half of Thursday's (Jan. 6) 84-61 win at Alaska Fairbanks. A medical exam on Monday revealed that Banchero sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee. Typical recovery time is six-to-nine months.
The 2010 Great Northwest Athletic Conference and West Region Player of the Year, Banchero garnered All-America accolades after his 19.6 points per game and 52-percent shooting led the Falcons to a 22-6 record. SPU won the GNAC championship and made its sixth straight NCAA Division II Tournament appearance.
"We are very disappointed for Chris. He has worked extremely hard to make this season special for himself and our team," said SPU coach
Ryan Looney. "I feel confident that Chris will work just as hard during his rehabilitation.
"Our team will miss him during the remainder of our season. We will need to find a way to have much more balance without Chris on the floor."
Banchero was averaging 22.4 points, 5.6 assists and 3.4 rebounds per game while leading the team with 13 steals. He is SPU's No. 8 all-time scorer with 1,327 career points.
A product of Seattle's O'Dea High School, Banchero reached the 30-point plateau three times this season topped by a career-high 42-point performance at Dominican on Dec. 18.
He was outstanding during the exhibition season, averaging 33.7 points in three outings, two of them against NCAA Division I opponents. Banchero tallied 38 points in a win at Eastern Washington (Nov. 2) and keyed SPU's victory at Nevada with 33 points (Nov. 6).
Banchero has twice been named the GNAC Player of the Week this season, on Nov. 29 and Dec. 30.
The Falcons (8-4, 2-2 GNAC) will play their first home game without Banchero on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Central Washington.
