PORTLAND, Ore. – With his very first bucket last week, Montana State University Billings men's basketball senior Marc Matthews reached 1,000 career points, and he didn't stop there as he scored 48 total to lead the Yellowjackets to a pair of wins.
 
The standout effort earned Matthews his second Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Week award this season, announced the conference office Monday.
 
"Marc is playing like a senior who has been in the program for five years should be playing, and we look forward to him continuing this over the next eight weeks," said MSUB head coach Jamie Stevens.
 
Matthews made 17 of 28 shots from the field (60.7 percent), including 10 of 18 shots from 3-point range (55.6 percent), helping MSUB to a 107-66 win over Simon Fraser on Thursday and a 100-93 win over No. 19 Western Washington on New Year's Eve.
 
In addition to Matthews' offensive excellence, he totaled 13 rebounds and led the team with eight in the win over the Vikings. Matthews added nine assists, five steals, and one block, and only turned the ball over two times in 62 minutes on the court in the two games.
 
On the season, the senior is averaging 15.8 points per game, and is now in 10th place in the GNAC in scoring. He currently owns a streak of four straight 20-point games, a feat achieved by just five other players in the GNAC so far this season. He ranks second in the league with 38 total made threes and an average of 3.2 per game.
 
"Right now, Marc is playing at an extremely high level," Stevens said. "Marc is shooting the ball well, but he is also doing a lot of little things on the defensive end."
 
Consecutive Games with 20+ Points, GNAC Men's Basketball 2016-17

Player	School	Games	Season Average	GNAC Rank
Dom Hunter	Central Washington	9	26.9	1
Suki Wiggs	Alaska Anchorage	5	23.6	2
Marc Matthews	MSU Billings	4	15.8	10
Tyler Copp	Saint Martin's	4	15.8	4
Jeffrey Parker	Western Washington	4	16.8	6
Taylor Stafford	Western Washington	4	22.3	3

Matthews earned GNAC Player of the Week honors for the week of Dec. 5-11, after scoring 49 total points in a pair of wins for the Yellowjackets. MSUB has now won three of the last four GNAC Player of the Week awards, as sophomore Preston Beverly received the honor after helping the team to three road wins the week of Nov. 21-27.
 
MSUB (8-4, 3-1 GNAC) has won seven of its last eight games and enters the week in a three-way tie for first place in the GNAC standings. The Yellowjackets begin a four-game home stand by hosting conference opponents Central Washington University on Thursday and Northwest Nazarene University on Saturday at Alterowitz Gym. Both games tip off at 7 p.m.