Tricia Fabbri Named MAAC Coach of the Year; Maria Napolitano Earns MAAC Sixth Player of the Year

Friday, March 6

Times Union Center - Albany, N.Y.

12 pm

Quinnipiac University

Monmouth - MAAC Quarterfinals

Tricia Fabbri Named MAAC Coach of the Year; Maria Napolitano Earns MAAC Sixth Player of the Year

3/6/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

ALBANY, New York - The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference announced its major award winners for the 2014-15 season on Friday night, where Quinnipiac head coach Tricia Fabbri was named The Rock MAAC Coach of the Year and junior guard Maria Napolitano (Cincinnati, Ohio) earned MAAC Sixth Player of the Year honors. The awards banquet was held at Swyer Theater at The Egg in Albany, New York and presented live on ESPN3.

Fabbri earns her fourth career Coach of the Year award honor and first since joining the MAAC. Fabbri wins her second Coach of the Year in three seasons as she won during the Bobcats' 30-3 run through the Northeast Conference in 2012-13. Napolitano becomes the seventh player under Coach Fabbri to receive a major award, the program's first Sixth Player of the Year award winner and the first since Quinnipiac joined the MAAC in 2013-14.

Fabbri was the unanimous selection as she led the Bobcats to the school's first MAAC Regular Season title and the number one overall seed in the 2015 MAAC Tournament. In her 20th season manning the helm in Hamden. Quinnipiac is 29-3 overall and is riding a 19-game winning streak heading into the MAAC Semifinals. For the second time in three seasons, Quinnipiac finished with an undefeated record (20-0) in conference play on their way to becoming the first school in MAAC history (est. 1980) to finish with a 20-0 record in league play.

The all-time winningest coach in Quinnipiac women's basketball history (323 career wins) guided the Bobcats to a 14-0 mark at home while the 2014-15 campaign is the Bobcats' fourth consecutive 20-win season. Quinnipiac has been receiving votes in the Associated Press (AP) National Top 25 Poll for three straight weeks while also earning one vote in the USA Today Coaches' Poll, both of which are good for firsts in program history.

Quinnipiac's Rating Percentage Index (RPI) is listed at No. 26 overall as of Friday, March 6 and are ranked in the Top 10 nationally in scoring offense (79.0 PPG), assists per game (20.1), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.5), three-point field goals made per game (9.1) and blocks per game (6.0). Coach Fabbri also makes the most of a balanced system as nine Bobcats average double digit minutes per game and seven players average 6.0 PPG or better.

Napolitano shot 35.7 percent from the field and 32.4 percent from three this season on the way to averaging 6.9 points and 1.8 rebounds while playing just over 16 mintues per game off the bench this season for the Bobcats. Heading up the Bobcats' vaunted "Gold Rush" unit off the bench, a strategy employed by Coach Fabbri in which she subs five players in and out of games, Napolitano was instant energy at all times as she finished in double figures six times despite playing over 20 minutes just four times.

She finished with a season-high 19 points in 18 minutes with five made three-pointers on Jan. 18 against Manhatta and her 17-point game at Monmouth on March 1 came on four made three-pointers also came in just 18 minutes of action.

Napolitano's role as a sixth player takes different meaning for the Bobcats as she is not asked to come in and spell a starter for large spans of games. Rather, Napolitano is the captain of an entirely different but highly effective Bobcat squad that is the highest scoring bench in the MAAC (27.0 PPG). In just 16.1 minutes per game, Napolitano averages 6.8 field goal attempts and hits an average of 1.5 three-pointers which is ranked just outside the Top 15 in the conference.

Quinnipiac (29-3) heads to the MAAC Semifinals on Sunday at 11 AM where the Bobcats take on the No. 5 seed Siena from the Times Union Center in Albany, New York.