KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Carson-Newman's men's basketball program has been named a recipient of the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Team Academic Excellence Award and five Eagles have been named to the NABC Honors Court, the organization announced Monday.
The NABC Team Academic Excellence Awards recognize men's basketball programs that completed the 2023-24 academic year with a team GPA of 3.0 or higher. The NABC Honors Court, meanwhile, includes junior, senior and graduate student men's basketball players who finished the 2023-24 year with a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher.
The NABC's academic awards recognize teams and athletes from all levels of college basketball.
Carson-Newman has received the Team Academic Excellence Award in consecutive years. After carrying a 3.17 GPA in 2022-23, the team upped it to 3.37 this year.
Carson-Newman and Emory & Henry were the only programs from the South Atlantic Conference recognized with team awards by the NABC.
The Eagles five honors court members are tied for the most in the SAC with the Wasps.
Nick Brenegan (Greenville, S.C.), Joshuwa Butts (Fairburn, Ga.), Camden McElhaney (Sevierville, Tenn.), Jarius Satterfield (Clarksville, Tenn.) and John Zhao (Sevierville, Tenn.) were the five Eagles recognized with a spot on the honors court this season.
Brenegan and McElhaney were repeat honorees from last season. Brenegan and Zhao were both College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections, with Zhao earning Academic All-America honors.
Brenegan, the nation's leader in threes, earned his second academic all-district honor after turning in the best three-point shooting season in school history. He also adds it to second-team All-SAC honors. Nick Brenegan's 3.97 made triples per game are the most in the country. He buried 108 this season, also first nationally among all divisions by pure volume. Brenegan is the first C-N player to hit 100 threes in a season, breaking Ish Sanders' 12-year-old single-season record of 99.
Butts appeared in 12 games with one start in his fourth season on the banks of Mossy Creek. He averaged 2.2 points and 1.8 boards after sitting out much of the first semester with an ankle injury. He scored a season high eight points against UVA Wise (Jen. 18) when he took four shots from the field without missing. He pulled in a career-high six boards against Lenoir-Rhyne (Jan. 13), including five on the offensive glass.
McElhaney appeared in 10 games for C-N and scored 11 points to average 1.1 points per game. He also had 11 boards on the year for a 1.1-rebound average. He topped out at four points against Milligan (Nov. 27) and had a pair of three-rebound games against the Buffs and at Catawba (Feb. 3).
Satterfield has 57 career appearances and four career starts in his time at C-N. Satterfield logged his first career double-digit scoring effort earlier this season against Tennessee Wesleyan. A steady point guard, Satterfield has four games in his senior season with at least four assists. He is a career 38.6 percent three-point shooter.
Zhao has been recognized by both the D2CCA and NABC with second-team all-region honors. He, LMU center Martez Brown and Wingate guard Donnell Nixon are the only players from the South Atlantic Conference to appear on both D2CCA and NABC all-region squads. Zhao is C-N's first all-region honoree since Charles Clark earned a third all-region honor in 2017-18.
Zhao turned in the most efficient effort in the SAC this season. He finished fifth in the league in scoring at 19.1 points per game while averaging 61.5 percent shooting from the field and 52.5 percent shooting from three. He ranks 10th nationally in efficiency and second in the league, while topping the conference in three-point efficiency. Zhao leads the nation in three-point efficiency. He resets the program's single-season record for three-point efficiency with his 52.5 percent mark. Zhao finishes the year with 84 threes made tied for the sixth-most in a single season in school history. He is one of four players in NCAA Division II history to shoot 52 percent or better from three for a season with at least 80 triples made in a year.
