BALTIMORE – After earning the No. 4 seed in Saturday's Jersey Mike's America East playoffs, the UMBC men's basketball squad had three players recognized with America East All-Conference awards on Friday. Graduate student guard Colton Lawrence (Third Team), freshman guard Dion Brown (All-Rookie Team) and junior guard Matteo Picarelli (All-Academic) were each recognized by the league's head coaches.
 
Lawrence leads UMBC in scoring (12.5 ppg.) and ranks 12th in the America East. The Myerstown, Pennsylvania native has reached double-figures in scoring in 22 of 29 contests, including a pair of 20+ performances. Lawrence has recorded 1,218 points and has hit 174 treys throughout his career.
 
Brown (7.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg.) missed the first 10 games of the season after recovering from an injury but became a valuable bench player from his first appearance as a Retriever. The Great Barrington, Massachusetts product scored a season-high 21 points in his first career game against Loyola (Md) on December 13. He reached double-figures in scoring in seven different contests, including 19-point road performances at Maine and New Hampshire.
 
Picarelli (10.1 ppg.) is one of the top sharpshooters in the conference as the Milan, Italy native drilled a career-best 66 treys during the regular-season. Picarelli, who has a 3.97 GPA in Financial Economics, was recently named to the 2022-23 Academic All-District Team