SELINSGROVE, Pa. – Susquehanna University junior guard Chris Zimmerman has been named first-team All-Commonwealth Conference in men’s basketball, while head coach Frank Marcinek earned the first Coach of the Year award in his 14-year career in voting by the league’s eight head coaches, the conference announced Tuesday.

The Crusaders finished 18-8 overall and won their first outright Commonwealth Conference regular-season championship with an 11-3 record. Susquehanna advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 1995-96 before losing 92-86 to Elizabethtown in the championship game at Houts Gymnasium on Saturday night.

Zimmerman (Coal Township, PA/Shamokin Area H.S.), a second-team All-Conference selection in 2001-02, averaged a team-high 13.4 points per game to rank 10th in the league and led the Commonwealth Conference with 5.7 assists per game.

Zimmerman’s return to the lineup after missing four starts with an ankle injury coincided with the Crusaders winning 12 of their final 13 regular-season games to earn the top seed in the conference playoffs.

He scored in double figures in 15 of his final 16 games and dished out eight or more assists in six different games during the 2002-03 season. Zimmerman also shot 41.6 percent from three-point range to rank sixth in the conference and averaged 1.8 steals to finish seventh in the Commonwealth rankings.

In two seasons at Susquehanna after transferring from Division I Bucknell, Zimmerman has scored 661 points (13.5 per game) and dished out 276 assists to rank fourth on the program’s career list. He also ranks sixth in career free-throw percentage (.828).

Marcinek was named conference Coach of the Year after leading the Crusaders to their highest win total since winning 19 games in 1993-94. He is the first Susquehanna men’s coach to earn Coach of the Year honors since Don Harnum received MAC Northern Division honors in his final season of 1988-89.

Marcinek, who led the Crusaders to the conference playoffs for the ninth time in his 14 seasons at Susquehanna, reached a pair of milestones during the season as he recorded his 200th career victory against Widener in the regular-season finale on February 22, then tied Harnum as the winningest coach in program history with his 201st win as the Crusaders defeated Lebanon Valley 73-61 in the Commonwealth semifinals on February 26.

He will begin his 15th season in 2003-04 with a record of 201-152 (.569) as Susquehanna head coach.