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News Release

ZITO, GREENE BECOME FIRST RETRIEVER MEN'S CAGERS TO EARN POST-SEASON AMERICA EAST HONORS

3/3/2006

John Zito

Vestal, N.Y.—Senior forward John Zito (Windsor, Conn./Windsor/St.Thomas More) and freshman guard Jay Greene (Whitehall, Pa./Whitehall) became the first two UMBC men’s basketball players to earn post-season awards in the America East Conference in the Retrievers’ third league season. Zito was named to the Second Team All America East Conference, while Greene was named to the league’s All-Rookie Team.

Zito leads UMBC in both scoring (14.2) and rebounding (7.1) and is ranked eighth and third respectively in those categories in the conference. He earned co-America East Player of the Week honors on November 21 and December 12, the first Retriever to earn multiple honors in a season. Zito scored in double figures 19 times this season, rebounded in double figures on five occasions and recorded five double-doubles. He has climbed the UMBC scoring charts to 14^th place with 967 points and has 482 career rebounds.

In his initial campaign, Greene led UMBC with 96 assists (3.7 pg), good for sixth in the America East Conference. He started the final 18 games of the season, averaged 8.1 points per game and hit 37.0 percent (47/127) from three-point range, tenth-best in the league. The five-foot-eight point guard was also fourth in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.66) and is within four helpers of becoming the fourth freshman in school history to record 100 in a season.

Eighth-seeded UMBC takes on No. 9 Stony Brook in the opening round of the America East Tournament on Friday at 7:00 p.m.