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CLEVELAND, OH ­ Senior Darcel Williams (Buffalo, NY/Traditional) of the University at Buffalo men's basketball team has earned All-Mid-American Conference Honorable Mention honors as announced by the league office.

Darcel Williams

Williams led the team with 15.1 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game. He posted a team-high nine double-doubles during the 2001-02 season and was one of two players to start all 30 games for the Bulls.

The Buffalo native scored in double figures in 21 games, including the first nine games of the season to help Buffalo to a 6-3 start. In addition, Williams scored 20-plus points on 13 different occasions. He shot 44 percent from the field (160-of-358) and 82 percent from the free throw line (69-of-84).

After back-to-back double-doubles in early December, he was named the MAC Player of the Week, becoming the first UB men's basketball player to win the award since the program joined the conference in 1998. His 18 rebounds in the victory over Kent State were the most by a UB player since Sam Pellom pulled down 24 against Temple on December 19, 1977. Williams had a career-high six three-pointers against Western Michigan - the seventh best all-time individual performance for a Bull - scoring 20 of his career-high 27 points on 7-of-10 shooting in the second half.

Williams began his basketball journey at Buffalo Traditional High School where he guided the team to a 1996 New York State Class C State Championship. After one season at Polk Junior College in Florida, he joined head coach Reggie Witherspoon at Erie Community College where he helped lead the team to a 24-5 overall record and a 14-0 conference mark. He then went on to play one year at Eastern Kentucky before rejoining Witherspoon at UB for his final year of eligibility. However, the switch back to his hometown forced him sit out last season in accordance with NCAA transfer rules.

Buffalo's 12 overall wins this season were the most since UB joined the MAC and the most since the 1997-98 season when it posted a 15-13 overall mark in its last year in the Mid-Continent Conference. In addition, Buffalo's seven MAC wins this season were more conference victories than it had in the previous three years when it went just 6-48 in conference play.