Nichols College senior DeAnte Bruton has been named to the D3hoops.com All-America Fourth Team and the WACBA Player of the Year.
The second all-time leading scorer at Nichols with 2,334 points, Bruton capped his standout career with a fourth-straight Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Championship and helped the Bison advance to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four years. Bruton finished second in the CCC in scoring (23.0 ppg), and averaged 38.0 ppg and 11 rebounds in three CCC playoff games, highlighted by a career-high 40 points in the semifinals against Gordon on February 27.
The New London, Conn. native reached double-figures in scoring in all but two games this past season, including 16 games with 20+ points and eight 30+ point efforts. Bruton opened the season by earning Tournament MVP honors at the Ted Coghlin Memorial Tournament in mid-November and later became the fourth student-athlete in program history to surpass the 2,000-point mark for his career. A CCC First Team pick for the fourth-consecutive season, Bruton was named CCC Player of the Week on three occasions in 2019-20, the last of which came following a 38-point, 14-rebound effort in the CCC Championship contest at Endicott on February 29.
Bruton – who made at least one 3-pointer in 25 of the 29 games he appeared in as a senior – scored 667 points this past season, which is the third-highest single-season mark at Nichols. He won a pair of playoff games in the final seconds, first by capping a 19-point second-half comeback with a coast-to-coast layup with 1.3 seconds remaining to stun Roger Williams in the CCC Quarterfinals. The following week, he knocked down the go-ahead jumper with 2.2 seconds on the clock to upend Stevens in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament.
Bruton graduates No. 1 in program history in field goals made (863); No. 2 in steals (214) and games played (113); No. 3 in three-pointers (226); No. 4 in assists (374) and free throws (382); No. 6 in scoring average (20.6 ppg); and No. 7 in free throw pct. (80.6). A D3hoops.com Northeast Region Fourth Team pick a year ago, Bruton becomes the third Bison to earn D3hoops Northeast Region First Team honors, joining Ryan Sheehan (2014) and Marcos Echevarria (2019).
Earlier this month, Bruton was named to the D3hoops.com All-Northeast Region First Team and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Northeast First Team. He joins Echevarria as the second Nichols student-athlete to nab D3hoops.com All-America honors; Echevarria was named to the All-America Second Team in 2018-19.
