By Curtis Rockwell, Sports Editor
The Picayune Item
HAMMOND, La. —
Picayune's Brandon Fortenberry continues to put up impressive numbers during his senior season at Southeastern Louisiana University.
The Louisiana Sports Writers Association honored the former Maroon Tide standout last week as it state basketball player of the week.
There was a tie for the men's winner between SLU's Fortenberry and Ricky Tarrant of Tulane sharing the honor.
Fortenberry tied career highs in scoring with 30 points, five 3-pointers and set a career-high with 10 made field goals in Southeastern's 73-62 victory at Nicholls State. He finished 10-for-17 from the floor, 5-for-8 from behind the 3-point line and 5-for-5 from the charity stripe in matching his previous scoring mark at Northwestern State on Jan. 12, 2011.
Fortenberry scored a game-high 16 points to lead Southeastern, which shot 56 percent (9-for-16) in the second half and held Southland Conference leader Stephen F. Austin to nearly 17 points below its scoring average in a recent win.
On the season, Fortenberry leads Southeastern in scoring (14.5 points), assists (2.8) and 3-pointers made (38). On Tuesday, the fifth-year senior handed out a pair of assists in a loss to McNeese State to become the second player in school history to record at least 400 assists in his career along with former Lion player and coach Leo McClure recording 433 from 1973-77.
Fortenberry and the Lions will travel to Rock Hill, S.C., to face Big South Conference member Winthrop University on Saturday as part of ESPN's 11th annual Ramada Worldwide BracketBusters event. The game tips off at 3 p,m., on ESPNU.
The meeting between Southeastern and Winthrop, under first-year coach Pat Kelsey, will be the first on the hardwood between the schools with the Eagles slated to return the trip to Hammond in either the 2013-14 or 2014-15 season.
Winthrop, which has made nine appearances in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championships since 1999, is currently 10-11 overall on the season including non-conference victories over Auburn and Ohio.
Against the current Big South membership, Southeastern has posted a 1-6 record that includes games against Campbell (1-4), Coastal Carolina (0-1) and Liberty (0-1).
From 1994-97, the Lions were league rivals with Campbell in the former Trans America Athletic Conference (now the Atlantic Sun) with Southeastern's lone victory in the series coming in the 1997 TAAC Tournament in Charleston, S.C.
Southeastern made its BracketBusters debut last season with a 64-48 victory over Ohio Valley Conference member UT Martin in the University Center.
