2022-23 NAIA All-Americans

        NEW ORLEANS — Xavier University of Louisiana men's basketball's Xavier Reaves received NAIA All-America honorable mention this past week.
        The NAIA announced Wednesday the 36-member team and 45 honorable-mention selections.
        Reaves — a 6-foot-6 fifth-year forward from Burtonsville, Md., and a graduate of Paint Branch High School — averaged 13 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 2.2 steals and shot 56 percent from the floor in 26 games for a 23-9 Gold Rush team that won the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament and, for the third consecutive season, reached the second round of NAIA nationals.
        This was Reaves' only season at XULA. He was a graduate transfer from Marymount (Va.) of NCAA Division III.
        Reaves is the 21st XULA man to receive honorable mention in this sport. The only Gold Rush NAIA All-Americans — third team or higher — are Alvin "Bo" Dukes, Shaun Dumas, William Loyd, Rayshawn Mart and Bruce Seals.
        Also notable:
        •  Reaves was the only player in Louisiana college basketball during the 2022-23 season — male or female, four-year or two-year school — to average at least 13 points, eight rebounds and two steals per game.
        •  Reaves is the only XULA man of the last 26 seasons to produce two double-doubles or two consecutive double-doubles in a conference tournament.
        •  Reaves' 8.7 rebounds per game are the second highest by a XULA man in the last 32 seasons. Denzell Erves — 9.3 per game in 2012-13 — is No. 1 for that period.
        •  Reaves pronounces his first name EX-zay-vee-er — different from the university, which is ZAY-vee-er.

Xavier Reaves portrait by Yamlak Tsega