Alex Lang joins basketball royalty

July 21, 2023 Andy Furman

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Alex Lang has been selected to coach at the prestigious NCAA College Basketball Academy in Memphis, Tenn., from July 24-27. After a 20-plus-year career as women’s basketball coach at Brooklyn College, Lang also served on the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee. He will join coaches from around the nation at a number of different levels during the four-day session.

The Bulldogs are coming off of completing a three-peat as CUNYAC Champions, making their fourth trip to the NCAA tournament in five seasons and extending their win-streak to 46 games against conference opponents.

Lang ends his 20-season coaching career with 340 wins, the all-time leader in CUNYAC women’s basketball.

Academy coaching staffs will be composed of Division II, Division III, NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) and junior college men’s and women’s college basketball coaches and high school coaches. On the women’s side, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association facilitated the process for member coaches to apply to work the academy.

The academies will provide prospective men’s and women’s student-athletes with a sample of the college basketball experience. These developmental summer academies pair high-level basketball competition with life skills instruction.

Prospective men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes can participate by visiting: https://thecbbacademy.com/.

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The Brooklyn College women’s soccer program will host its first-ever ID Clinic, Aug. 5 from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. at Brooklyn College Field. For high school girls ages 14 and up that aspire to play collegiately, the clinic will include drills and scrimmages, according to Brooklyn College head coach Agath Tsantsaridis.

The cost for each participant is $60. The registration link is: brooklyncollegeathletics.com/wsidcamp.

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Mike Boynton, a former star basketball performer at Bishop Loughlin High School and current basketball coach at Oklahoma State University, participated in a new Big 12 program reaching out to young players in the Conference’s Rucker Park Program called “Big 12 Hoops in the Park.”

Big 12 Conference Commissioner Brett Yormark said: “Harlem’s Rucker Park has had a legendary basketball reputation for their summer leagues featuring trop players.”

Boynton was just one of six men’s and women’s coaches selected for the event that was staged Tuesday in partnership with New York City Parks.

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Francesco Bonvini has been selected to represent Italy at the upcoming 2023 U-23 Baseball European Championship, which is to be held Aug. 8-12 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

Bonvini became one of Kingsborough Community College’s most accomplished baseball players as he was named NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) Second Team All-American, Region XV First Team and a CUNYAC Community College Baseball Pitcher of the Year for a second-straight season.

In addition, he was named CUNYAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Honorable Mention.

Bonvini finished the 2023 season for the Wave tied for the most strikeouts in the country (121), while ranking among the top 10 nationally in wins (8) and innings pitched (79.0). He led Kingsborough to a second-straight CUNYAC championship while helping the Wave win the Region XV title for the first time since 1972.

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The Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) has announced the recipients of the Team Academic Awards for winter and spring 2023 and Pratt Institute has received the award in men’s volleyball for the second-straight season. The CSAC Team Academic Award is given annually to each varsity sports team whose student-athletes, while competing in conference-sponsored sports, achieve the highest combined grade-point average. Pratt achieved a team GPA of 3.523 in the spring semester.

In addition, nine Cannoneers were tabbed to the 2023 CSAC All-Academic Team for achieving a grade-point average of 3.20 or better in the spring 2023 semesters. Pratt’s nine honorees are: Jude Fox, Wallace Hallot, Owen Hinrichs, Jason Raymond, Brooks Reid, Eli Toker, Lenard Tolentino, Max Wang and Evan Wu.

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The LIU women’s volleyball team displayed its talent in the classroom as well as on the court during the 2022-23 academic year. That was further validated with the awarding of a USMC/AVCA Team Academic Award. The award is presented to teams that maintain a cumulative 3.30 GPA or-above during the academic year.

On the court, the Sharks will look to achieve continued success this fall under first-year head coach Amable Martinez.

Martinez previously served as the head coach at rival St. Francis College, Brooklyn, during which he helped the Terriers to a pair of 14-win campaigns. LIU opens the upcoming season Aug. 25 against Temple in Philadelphia. The Sharks will also face and Iona and Lehigh at the Temple Invitational.

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Four LIU bowlers have been recognized by the National Tenpin Coaches Association for their performance in the classroom.

Samantha Coccaro, Shayla Kaim, Sarah Orensky and Charlize Wanner have been named NTCA All-Academic scholar-athletes.

A student-athlete must have a produced minimum 3.40 GPA for the 2022-23 academic year to qualify.

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Make it a three-peat.

The 2023 USA Fencing Summer National Championships, featuring the best fencers in America from ages 10 to 80 in all three weapons, was recently held over a 10-day span in Phoenix.

And LIU fencing coach and 2004 U.S. Olympian Ivan Lee competed as the defending national champion in the Veteran-40 Men’s Sabre event, which was open to all competitors between the ages of 40 and 49.

Lee defeated Jeffrey Kallio of North Carolina to win his third consecutive Vet-40 National Championship and his 20th U.S. national championship overall.

Lee’s 20 national titles span 25 years.

He won the U-20 national championship back in 1968, while a high school student at Brooklyn Tech High School. He has nine Division I team titles, five Division I individual titles, three junior titles and three veteran titles.

LIU and Harvard are the only two universities in the nation with three fencing national champions on their coaching staffs.

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More fencing honors for the Sharks. LIU fencing now has a pair of USA Fencing Hall of Famers on its coaching staff.

Assistant coach Sean McClain was recently inducted during a ceremony at the 2023 USA Fencing Summer National Championships. He joined LIU fencing head coach and 2014 Hall of Fame inductee Ivan Lee at the ceremony.

McClain is just one of three fencers all-time to win a Division I National Championship in both foil (2001) and epee (1994). He was the 1995 NCAA foil national champion while representing Stanford University. As a coach, he has produced three world champions and multiple national champions in foil.

LIU is now the only university in America with two USA Fencing Hall of Fame members on its coaching staff.

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Four LIU women’s golfers earned accolades for their performance in the classroom.

Vera Arrebola Granes, Emily Byrne, Juliana De Leon and Maja Toth were selected to the Women’s Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar Team.

The recognition goes to women’s collegiate golfers who have achieved a cumulative GPA of at least 3.50 and who competed in at least half of the team’s competitive rounds during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Arerebola Granes, who remains with the Sharks as a graduate student this upcoming academic year, competed in 10 events in 2022-23. The Spaniard had an average score of 80.85 per-round and tallied 30 birdies for the year.

Byrne, who also returns to LIU as a grad student, earned second-team All-NEC honors after finishing 18th at the conference’s championship tournament. She produced a team-leading 51 birdies and had an average round score of 76.42.

De Leon, an accounting major who graduated this past May, competed in six events. A San Jose, Calif. native, she earned the team’s LIU Shark Spirit Award.

Toth, a rising senior from Budapest, Hungary, competed in nine events and averaged 85.54 per-round, with eight birdies. She received the team’s most improved award.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR