AMHERST — Three of UMass’ highest profile winter athletes each took home conference honors Monday.
Minuteman guard Luwane Pipkins was named Atlantic 10 men’s basketball player of the week for his historic performance. Pipkins had a program-record 44 points against La Salle Wednesday and 27 vs. Saint Joseph’s Sunday, leading the Minutemen to two come-from-behind wins.
Pipkins leads the Atlantic 10 with 20.2 points per game overall and 25.6 points per game in conference play.
Freshman guard Carl Pierre was the league’s co-rookie of the week after averaging 21 points per game in the two wins. He had 25 against La Salle and 17 vs. St. Joe’s. He shared the honor with fellow Bostonian Kellen Grady of Davidson.
In his first weekend back from the world junior tournament, Cale Makar earned Hockey East rookie of the week honors with two goals and an assist in a tie and a victory over Vermont.
It was the first weekly honor for the defensman, who won a gold medal for Canada in the WJC tournament. Makar and the Minutemen play at Maine at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
CAMBY RETURNS — In addition to Travis Ford returning to UMass for the first time as the coach of Saint Louis, former Minuteman star Marcus Camby will also be at the Mullins Center for Saturday’s game. Early arriving fans will receive Camby-themed T-shirts and trading cards.
HOCKEY ON ESPN3 — Hockey East announced a multi-year agreement with ESPN that will put 10 regular season Hockey East games on ESPN3, the network’s streaming service. UMass will play in two of those games, Feb. 9 at BU and Feb. 22 at UConn.
The Hockey East tournament semifinals and finals will also be available on ESPN3.
CARLINO, PRICE ON NATIONAL TEAM — Former field hockey standouts Sam Carlino and Hannah Prince were named to the U.S. team that will play in the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup, Feb. 7-11 in Berlin, Germany.
Carlino and Prince were members of the U.S. team that won gold at the Indoor Pan American Cup in October.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage