INDIANAPOLIS – After carving out a pair of Midwest Region wins on opening weekend, top 10 nationally-ranked Hillsdale was announced as the first winner of Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week honors on Tuesday.
 
The league crossed over at multiple neutral sites against respective Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) and Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) on Friday through Sunday.
 
Ashland opened the 2021-22 campaign with the first tip and first victory for the conference on Friday against Wayne State. Hillsdale was the only program to go 2-0 after the Chargers were picked as the preseason conference favorite following their season as the No. 1 seed in the reconfigured Atlantic Region.
 
Other opening day regional wins included Trevecca Nazarene over Missouri S&T from the GLVC, Kentucky Wesleyan over Illinois Springfield from the GLVC and Findlay over Quincy from the GLVC.
 
Four different players are averaging over 20 points per game through Week 1 in the conference including Hillsdale’s Patrick Cartier, Malone’s Bo Myers, Trevecca’s CJ Penha and Malone’s Justin Miller (22 ppg).
 
Men’s Basketball Player of the Week
Patrick Cartier
Hillsdale
Forward
Junior
Brookfield, WI (East HS)
 
Cartier is a consensus Division II All-American, reigning conference player of the year and after leading Hillsdale to wins over Saginaw Valley State and future league member Northwood, is going to continue to be a major problem for opposing teams.
 
It was hard to ask anymore from the forward after averaging 32 points per game while shooting north of 70 percent of the field on 26-of-39 shooting.  
 
It’s those kind of numbers that everyone has just come to expect from the junior. Cartier does so on such a consistent basis that the program went into the new season with even more raised expectations after last year’s success.
 
Cartier also averaged four rebounds and made 10 free throws in addition to a pair of three-point field goals.

Cartier was on a mission on opening day as he torched Saginaw Valley State for 34 points on 15-of-20 shooting. He had back-to-back 30 point efforts with a game-high 30 against Northwood in Midland, Mich. Cartier finished 11-of-17 on all shot attempts and grabbed five rebounds.