Eastern New Mexico men’s basketball senior Chukuka Emili has been named the Lone Star Conference Defensive Player of the Week, marking the second straight week that Emili has earned player of the week honors.
The New City, N.Y. native was named offensive player of the week last week after averaging 20.5 points per game in the Greyhounds wins over UT-Permian Basin and Western New Mexico. Emili continued to elevate his play and helped lead the Hound’s to their fourth and fifth straight wins this past weekend, taking down Texas A&M-Kingsville by a final score 76-72 and Angelo State by an 83-71 final to push their conference record to 9-6, the most wins in league play for the Hounds since the 2012-13 season.
Emili averaged 8.0 rebounds over the weekend and totaled eight blocks throughout the two games, increasing his lead in the blocks category in the LSC to 52 blocks, 14 more than the next closest player. He also led Eastern New Mexico with 14.0 points per game and recorded his seventh double-double of the season on Saturday afternoon with 13 points and 10 rebounds against Angelo State.
A solid effort from Emili and the rest of the Hound’s defense was instrumental in both wins over the weekend as Eastern New Mexico limited it’s two opponents to shooting just 35.8 percent from the field throughout the two games. Emili and company put together their best defensive half of the season in the second half of Saturday’s win against Angelo State, limiting the Rams to just eight made field goals for the entirety of the second half and erased a 42-28 halftime deficit.
Emili’s play the last two weeks has helped push the Greyhound win streak to five games, the longest of the season for head coach Tres Segler’s team, and has elevated the Hounds to fourth place in the Lone Star Conference standings with just three games remaining in the regular season. Eastern will take on the top two teams in the league during their three game road stretch to close out the season in West Texas A&M and Texas A&M-Commerce, as well as Tarleton State, who sits just one game behind the Hounds with a conference record of 8-6.
That road swing will kick off this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Texas A&M-Commerce.
