It's a fitting way to end the men's basketball regular season for Hillsdale College sophomore Patrick Cartier.
On Monday afternoon, the Great Midwest Athletic Conference office announced that Cartier had been named the conference Men's Basketball Athlete of the Week for the week of Feb. 22-28. It's the fifth such honor for Cartier this season, and the seventh of his young career.
The sophomore from Brookfield, Wisconsin has dominated the award this season, winning five of the 11 awards, and he's one of just two players in the league to win it more than once in 2020-21.
Cartier had another strong week to cap the season, scoring a career-high 32 points on 14 of 18 shooting from the floor, and adding eight rebounds, three assists and three steals in an 85-83 road win over Tiffin on Wednesday to keep the Chargers' winning streak alive.
Then, in Hillsdale's final regular season contest at home against Cedarville on Saturday, Cartier was perfect from the floor, going 7 of 7 from the field, 2 of 2 from 3-point range, and 5 of 5 from the free throw line to finish with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists in a 75-54 Charger victory.
For the season, Cartier leading the G-MAC in points per game (20.4) and field goal percentage (65.7%), and he's eighth in the conference in free throw percentage at 77.6%. Nationally, Cartier is eighth in Division II in field goal percentage this season, and his 239 attempts are nearly 100 more than any player in front of him on the list.
Cartier and the 19-1 Chargers are the top-seed in the G-MAC Tournament this week and host a quarterfinal matchup against Trevecca Nazarene on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Hillsdale is seeking to win its first conference tournament title since 1995 to add to a G-MAC regular season title it's already clinched this season.