Six Gators Chosen for the CSC Academic All-District® Men's and Women's Basketball Teams
ALBANY, N.Y. – Six Russell Sage College student-athletes were named to the 2025-2026 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District® Men's and Women's Basketball Teams.
Junior guard Pape Tunkara (Mount Vernon, NY/Iona Prep/Genesee CC), senior forward Ben Aprilante (Fort Montgomery, NY/James I. O'Neil/SUNY Adirondack), and forward Sidney Lebonzo (Montgomery Village, MD/Watkins Mill/Salisbury), a graduate student, represented the men's basketball program, while junior forward Kallie Hopkins (Millsboro, DE/Poly Tech), senior forward Emily Zeh (Oneonta, NY/Oneonta) and senior guard Madison Huneau (Cohoes, NY/Cohoes) were selected from the women's basketball team.
Zeh and Huneau also received the honor last season.
The 2025-2026 Academic All-District® Men's and Women's Basketball Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the court and in the classroom. The CSC Academic All-America® program separately recognizes honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
Academic All-District® honorees advance to the CSC Academic All-America® ballot. First, second and third-team Academic All-America® honorees will be announced April 14 and April 15.
Gator Bites: Russell Sage College Men's Basketball captured its first Empire 8 Conference regular season title on February 17…The Gators, which won 20 games for just the second time in program history, spent much of the winter at or near the top of the Conference standings and were one of the first squads to secure a postseason berth…RSC made its second-straight appearance in the E8 playoffs…The Gators, which qualified for three-consecutive E8 Tournaments from 2020-2022, have now appeared five times in the postseason as a member of the E8…The Empire 8 Conference chose the RSC coaching staff, led by Brian Barnes as its Coaching Staff of the Year...Junior center Khalel Noteman (Brooklyn, NY/Canarsie) was tabbed the E8 Defensive Player of the Year, while senior guard Brandon Harris (Elmsford, NY/Alexander Hamilton/Herkimer CC) became just the second RSC player to earn first-team All-E8 honors...The 2025-2026 season marked the 17th for Barnes at the helm of Russell Sage College Men's Basketball…He achieved career win number 200 on November 15 at SUNY Cobleskill...RSC got off to its best five-game (5-0), ten-game (9-1), and 15-game (13-2) starts to a season in program history…The first loss was to top-ranked Trinity…The 2014-2015 edition of the Gators started their season at 6-1 and 7-3 on their way to a 23-5 overall record and capturing the Skyline Conference Tournament Championship, and accompanying NCAA Tournament berth...RSC started that historic season, and also began last year, with a 12-3 record… The Gators concluded the regular season as the top offense and rebounding squad in the E8…RSC began the Tournament ranked 24th in the country in scoring and 13th in rebounding…The Gators did a tremendous job of pressuring opponents, starting their playoff run ranked in the top-16 nationally in steals per-game, turnovers forced per-game, and turnover margin…Seven players are back from last year's squad…Noteman, Harris, and junior guard Deavion Springsteen (Albany, NY/Albany) headlined the returners…Harris, voted third-team All-Conference in 2024-25, topped the Gators with 12.9 points per-game last season…The senior converted the game-winning layup with two seconds left in the January 6 overtime victory at Utica…He headed into the postseason third in the conference in steals (58), and steals per-game (2.3), and fifth in points per-game (17.7) and assists per-game (3.3)…Tunkara, a second-team All-E8 pick, concluded the regular season atop the E8 with 62 steals, 2.7 steals per-game…He was ninth in scoring average at 15.7 points per-game…The duo headed into Saturday's E8 Quarterfinal round contest in the top-40 nationally in steals and steals per-game…Noteman, who also garnered second-team All-Conference accolades, started the playoffs third in the Conference in field goal percentage (56.2) and sixth in rebounding (7.3)...As the season progressed, junior guard Adam Myers (Troy, NY/LaSalle Institute/Saint Rose) increased his role as a distributor, beginning the postseason second in the Conference with a 2.1 assist-to-turnover ratio, and seventh with 3.1 assists per-game…Barnes added seven newcomers to the program…Sophomore guard Kyle Dhu (Ozone Park, NY/Brooklyn Law and Tech) was tabbed the E8 Player of the Week for the period ending Sunday, November 16…He averaged 25.5 points on 60.7 percent shooting in the 2-0 week…The sophomore made 61.5 percent of his three-point attempts and totaled 11 rebounds, five steals and four assists across the pair of victories…Harris was selected the E8 Player of the Week for the period ending Sunday, January 26…The guard averaged 26.0 points on 51.3 percent shooting across home wins vs. Nazareth (1/23) and Saint John Fisher (1/24)…He scored 35 points, the second most in a game by an RSC player, in the victory vs. Nazareth…On February 23, 2017 vs. Old Westbury, Rob Mills '17 went for 36 to help the Gators advance to the Skyline Conference Championship Tournament Finals…Jalon Borders '22 earned first-team All-E8 honors three times following the 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022 seasons.
