The Shippensburg University men’s basketball team won 27 games on the way to its most successful season in the program’s history. That is why it is no surprise that junior forward Dustin Sleva has been recognized as one of the nation’s top players.

On March 21, Sleva became the first player in SU history to earn a National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) First-Team All-American team selection. Sleva was also recognized with a spot on the Division II Conference Coaches Association (CCA) team as a First-Team All-American.

Sleva was one of just 16 players to be recognized by the NABC, which includes the Top 2 vote-getters from each of Division II’s eight regions. Alongside Sleva was Fairmont State University’s Matt Bigaya as the selections from the Atlantic Region. All 16 of those selected players are now up for the NABC’s Player of the Year award.

With the selections, Sleva is SU’s second All-American, as he joins Keith Hill who was a third-team honoree in 1991.

“It’s nice to get that recognition,” Sleva said. “I never expected it and its really good. You have your goals as a team and then anything from an individual standpoint is just icing on the cake.”

The accolades are nothing new for Sleva this season, after he was named the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) East Division Player of the Year. Sleva led SU in points per game with 21.7 points, while leading the PSAC with 11 rebounds per game. Sleva averaged a double-double for the season, finishing the year with 20 double-doubles.

“It’s a cool thing to do,” Sleva said. “I never came here expecting this, I just wanted to come in and play my role. I wasn’t expecting any of this and we have a lot of the guys on the team who could do this and they give up a lot of their shots for me, so it’s a good accomplishment but it’s a team accomplishment. They really helped me to break records.”

Sleva also set the SU record for points in a season with 674 points and has 1,365 points for his career, which is eighth all-time at SU. Sleva sits 460 points shy of the SU school record, which is currently held by SU assistant coach Chuck Davis.

During the season, SU went 27–4, winning the PSAC Championship and its first ever NCAA Tournament game against Virginia Union University.

“Most people didn’t expect us to even make it that far but we knew we had the potential to win every game on our schedule,” Sleva said. “We accomplished all of our goals and set a new goal of trying to win a national championship. Everything after winning the PSAC Championship was icing on the cake. Next season we will come back and raise our expectations.”

The Raiders saw their season end in a hard-fought battle against Wheeling Jesuit University, 97–91 in the Atlantic Region Semifinals.

However, the loss gives SU — which is returning all but one of its starters — the opportunity to learn for next season.

“At the beginning of the year our goal was to win a PSAC Championship, and maybe make it to the tournament,” Sleva said. “Hopefully this year our goals will be to win the PSAC Championship and make a deeper run in the tournament. It’s hard to win in a one-game series, that’s why the NBA Finals are seven games. You never know how one game will go, but you just have faith in your teammates and hope it works out.”

Before the season, SU was picked to finish in fourth place in the PSAC East Division, which gave the team a chip on its shoulder, according to Sleva.

“We knew we were better than that, it was really us being snubbed for not being recognized as a good basketball school,” Sleva said. “IUP has a big fancy gym and all this money, but they can have all that and we rode out with our five guys looking to use that chip on our shoulder and move forward as underdogs.”

Sleva also expressed how important it is to stress to the incoming players the goal of winning a PSAC title, along with just how hard it is to win the conference.

“It’s been a long three years,” Sleva said. “Winning the PSAC — the freshmen don’t understand how hard that is. My freshman year we got blown out by almost 25 points to Kutztown, before we beat them in the championship two years later. It’s a grind. It’s not that easy, we just have to keep that in mind.”

Sleva plans to work this summer by staying active in summer leagues in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area where he is from, while also potentially working as an official. With a successful junior season, Sleva and SU will look to repeat as conference champions and return to the NCAA Tournament.

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