Craig Haese
Men's Basketball
2000-01
Craig Haese was just as much of a perfectionist in the classroom as he was on the basketball court and for his all around efforts, he has been chosen as the 2001 Vindicator Male Athlete of the Year.
Haese is the first men’s basketball player since Tim Jackson in 1989-90 to win the award and is only the second men’s basketball player in the 14 years in the honor’s history to be selected.
In 2000-01, Haese was named a first-team All Mid-Continent Conference selection averaging 14.1 points per game and as an Elementary Education major owns a 3.66 cumulative grade point average. He was honored in February as one of five student athletes to make the Verizon/CoSIDA Academic All District IV Men’s Basketball team.
As a senior, Haese helped the Penguins finish 19-11 overall as the squad won 11 conference games, tying the school record for conference wins in a season. He made a school-record 92 3-pointers on a school best 218 3point attempts. From the free-throw line he rarely missed, making 62-of-66 attempts for an impressive school-record 93.9 percent. He finished the sesaon with 410 points, shooting 43.7 percent from the field and 42.2 percent from behind the 3 point arc.
Haese tied for 17th in the nation averaging 3.2 3pointers per game. In his final year, Haese scored in double figures 22 times in 30 contests and had 20-or-more points seven times, including 28 points against UMKC and IUPUI. He led the Penguins in scoring 10 games his final year and in four contests made seven 3 pointers, second best in school history.
He was selected as a Mid Con Player of the Week once and named to the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic All Tournament Team.
He concluded an impressive career scoring 1,033 points becoming the 27th player in school history to score more than 1000 points in a career. He set school standards with 198 3-point field goals made and 527 3-pointers attempted. He also owns the school mark for career free throw percentage at 85.8 percent (181-211).
In his stellar four-year career, Haese played in 112 games and saw his scoring average increase every campaign. In almost half of his games as a Penguin, Haese scored in double figures - 52 of 112 games. He finished with 56 career starts in his four-year tenure.
As a junior, he scored 310 points as he made 47 3-pointers and grabbed a career high 91 rebounds. He finished the 1999-00 season posting a career high 60 assists. He became one of just nine players in YSU history to score more than 30 points in a game on Dec. 29, 1999, when he scored 32 points against Tennessee State. Besides earning a league player of the week award, he was named to the All Tournament Team at the Dr Pepper Classic, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
His sophomore season, he played in 27 games and scored 155 points for YSU. As a freshman, he scored 158 points in 29 games.
A graduate of DePere High School in DePere, Wis, Craig’s parents are Carl and Carol Haese.
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