RMU Women’s Basketball: Artemis Spanou, Coach Sal Buscaglia Earn Top NEC Honors

It has been a busy week for the Robert Morris University women’s basketball team as they claimed the Northeast Conference regular season title on Monday with a 71-65 victory over Mount St. Mary’s at the Charles L. Sewall Center.

Then, on Thursday morning, it was time for the Colonials to bring back to the Moon Township campus two of the NEC’s hoop awards.

The honorees were announced as a prelude to the NEC tournament, which begins on Sunday with quarterfinal play at four campus sites. RMU (18-11, 14-4 NEC) will host the LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds (9-20, 7-11 NEC) at 2 p.m. at the Chuck.

For the second consecutive year, the NEC selected Colonials senior Artemis Spanou as its Player of the Year. The 6-foot-2 forward from Rhodes, Greece, is one of just seven players in NCAA Division 1 history to record 2,042 points, 1,518 rebounds, 350 assists and 107 blocks in a career.

Breaking all program records, male or female, Spanou became the all-time leading scorer for Robert Morris on Feb. 22 when she passed 1,970 career points on the road against the Bryant University Bulldogs. Besides earning All-NEC First Team honors, she also has 83 career doubles-doubles, including 33 in a row.

Spanou is the fourth Colonial in nine seasons to earn the NEC Player of the Year. The others are Sugeiry Monsac in 2004-2005, Sade Logan in 2007-2008 and Angela Pace in 2009-2010. She is just the fourth player in NEC history to earn player of the year honors twice, joining Vanessa Blair of Mount St. Mary’s in 1991 and 1992, Susie Rowlyk of Mount St. Mary’s in 1994 and 1995, and Jess Zinoble of Saint Francis University in 1998 and 2000.

The Brenda Reilly coach of the year award went to the Colonials’ Sal Buscaglia for the third time in his 11th year as head coach of the RMU women’s baskeball program, He won it during the 2004-2005 and 2008-2009 seasons.

With a roster that features eight underclassmen and only four upperclassmen, Robert Morris overcame an early-season slump to win 15 of its final 19 contests to go along with a perfect 9-0 record in league home games. Buscaglia is 184-147 at RMU, including a 130-68 record in the NEC.

Freshman guard Anna Niki Stamolamprou and first-year center Cassie Oursler made the NEC All-Rookie team.

Stamolamprou spent time at both the point and two-guard positions on the court for RMU while averaging 12.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists. The Thessaloniki, Greece, native put up 53 3-pointers, the most among the league’s freshmen.

The 6-3 Oursler averaged 7.4 points and 5.1 rebounds per game while leading the Colonials with 46 blocks. The Grand Island, N.Y., native had her best game on Monday against Mount St. Mary’s when she scored 17 points and pulled down 18 rebounds for her third double-double of the season.

After the quarterfinals on Sunday, the semifinals round of the NEC Women’s Tournament will be held on March 12. Those games will be broadcast on ESPN3.

Larry is a staff writer for City of Champions. Follow him on Twitter.