Feature Story on Peatling by Australia's "Pick and Roll" Web Site

For the third time this season and in his career, Eastern Washington University men's basketball senior Mason Peatling has been honored as the Big Sky Conference Ready Nutrition Player of the Week, the league office announced Tuesday (Feb. 25). He also earned the same honor from College Sports Madness – his second of the year.
 
In a weekend sweep over Sacramento State and Northern Arizona, the 6-foot-8 Peatling averaged 27.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 1.0 steals as he continued his tear through the Big Sky. He made 66.7 percent of his field goal attempts (22-of-33), 5-of-8 3-pointers and 6-of-8 free throws, with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 12-2.
 
"He's a stud and doing everything for us," head coach Shantay Legans of the player who is seventh or better in league-games only in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocked shots and field goal percentage. "He's my pick for Big Sky Player of the Year. He's averaging a double-double in league play, in both games last week he had six assists and he's ranked in the top three in the league in blocks."
 
In an 80-70 win over NAU, he had 27 points, 15 rebounds and six assists. He sank 11-of-17 field goals and nine of his boards were on the offensive end. One game earlier versus Sac State, he had 28 points, 10 rebounds and six assists while making 11-of-16 from the field, including 4-of-6 from the 3-point arc.
 
Those games were part of his current stretch of nine double-doubles in 11 games, including the last five EWU games from Feb. 8 to Feb. 22 in which he has averaged 23.4 points, 11.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists.
 
Peatling, who is from Melbourne, Australia, was recently selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII squad for having a graduate grade point average of 4.0 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.89.
 
"Mason is unbelievable," praised Legans. "And he has a chance to be an Academic All-American with a 4.0 grade point average as graduate student. You would be hard-pressed to find a better student-athlete in the country with what Mason is doing right now. It's amazing and fun to watch him play, and eventually it will be fun to see his professional career take off."
 
Peatling is 56th in NCAA Division I in rebounding overall (9.0 to rank second in the league behind teammate Kim Aiken Jr.) and 36th in offensive rebounds per game (league-leading 3.3). He's averaging 17.3 points for the season to rank fifth in the league, his 55.4 percent field goal shooting is second and his 1.5 blocks per game are third. In league games only, he ranks fourth in scoring (18.9), first in rebounding (10.5), second in field goal percentage (.566), seventh in assists (3.6) and third in blocked shots (1.7).
 
Peatling has now played 114 games in his career to rank 13th in school history, and he became the 22nd player all-time at Eastern to hit the 1,000-point mark (he currently ranks 14th with 1,184). His .555 shooting percentage in his career currently ranks seventh, his 686 rebounds are seventh and his 106 blocked shots are third as he became the third Eagle in school history to hit the century mark in blocks. In his career (92 games as a starter), Peatling has averaged 10.4 points, 6.0 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.9 blocked shots and 0.7 steals. He now has 20 double-doubles in his career – including 12 this season and nine in the last 11 games -- with a record of 18-2.
 
He is now just the sixth player in school history to have at least 1,000 points and 525 rebounds in his career. Coming to Eastern from Melbourne, Australia, Peatling is only the second player to couple that with 50 blocked shots. Fellow Australian Venky Jois had 1,803 points, 1,015 rebounds and 240 blocks in his career from 2013-16.
 
One of just two Eagle seniors on this year's team, Peatling and teammate Jacob Davison were among the six players chosen league-wide as preseason All-Big Sky selections for the 2019-20 season. Peatling was sidelined a year ago with a foot injury when the Eagles were just 1-9, but since then Eastern is 34-17 (15-9 last year, 19-8 this season) heading into EWU's game versus Southern Utah on Feb. 27.
 
"He listens and handles the emotions of the game," added Legans. "That's what a senior leader does for you, and he's been like that since he's gotten here. He's been even keel, but he's excited when other players make plays and when he makes plays. He's showing our younger players what it means to be an Eagle, play for this university and how important everything is."