Zach Wallace Earns CoSIDA First Team Academic All-America Status

2017 Mar 1

The awards continue to pile up for Rockford University senior forward Zach Wallace (Rockford, Ill.) as earlier today he was named First Team Academic All-America by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Wallace becomes the first Regent since 1985 to be selected a CoSIDA Academic All-American and the first RU men's basketball player to receive the honor since 1978. He is just the fourteenth student-athlete in Rockford University history to earn CoSIDA Academic All-America status.

Today's honor is just the latest in a long list of awards that Wallace has received so far this year. To this date, Wallace has been named First Team Academic All-America, First Team Academic All-District, First Team All-NACC, NACC Defensive Player of the Year, NACC Men's Basketball Student-Athlete of the Week, D3 Men's Basketball HERO of the Week and twice selected to the D3hoops.com Team of the Week.

All of Wallace's awards are well deserved as he led the NACC in three major statistical categories and finished a close second in another. He concluded the regular season as the conference's leading scorer (21.7 ppg), rebounder (11.5 rpg) and shot blocker (2.8 bpg) and also had the second highest field goal percentage (61.4%). Wallace is only the second player in the history of the NACC to the lead the conference in both scoring and rebounding and is the first to ever lead the conference in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots.

Nationally he ranks in the top thirty in eight different categories. Wallace is currently fourth in made field goals (232), ninth in blocks per game, sixteenth in rebounds per game and double-doubles (16), twenty-first in field goal percentage, twenty-fourth in defensive rebounds per game (7.76), twenty-sixth in offensive rebounds per game (3.72) and twenty-eighth in points per game.

Wallace has also left his footprint all over the RU men's basketball program. At the conclusion of his career, Wallace is now the seventh leading scorer (1,529) and the sixth leading rebounder (801) in school history. He also holds a trio of school records including career field goal percentage (58.1%) and blocked shots in a season (70) and in a career (207).

In the classroom, Wallace has been equally impressive earning recognition from multiple different organizations. In his seven full semesters at Rockford University, he has been named to Dean's List three times and twice been recognized as a Distinguished Scholar. The Rockford native has also been named both a NACC Scholar-Athlete and a member of the RU Athletic Director's Honor Roll in each of his first three years. He was also inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma, the National College Athlete Honor Society, this past academic year.