Eastern Illinois men's basketball coach
Marty Simmons has announced the addition of transfer guard Artese Stapleton (6'3" / 170) to the Panthers roster for next season.
He has played last season at Kansas City appearing in ten games with five starts prior to a season ending injury just prior to the winter break. Stapleton averaged 4.1 points, 1.2 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game. He scored a season high 14 points against Middle Tennessee adding four assists. He also added a four assist game at Baylor while making his first start for the Roos at Colorado State.
Stapleton is a Chicago native prepping at Kenwood Academy where he helped lead the team to the regional championship. He began his career playing two seasons at Lewis where he earned GLVC All-Freshman team honors averaging 10.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. He scored in double figures 15 times as a freshman. During his sophomore year at Lewis he was named the GLVC Tournament MVP leading the team to the conference championship. He averaged 10.8 points and 3.8 rebounds per game scoring in double figures in 14 games. He scored 15 points with seven assists in the GLVC Championship game.
He transferred to play at Division I Radford during his junior season averaging 7.0 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. Stapleton finished second on the team in both assists and steals scoring in double figures six times as he made ten starts in 27 games played. As a senior he played at Lincoln University earning D2 HBCU All-America honors after averaging 17.3 points per game. He ranked in the top ten in the MIAA in scoring, assists, steals and field goal percentage scoring in double figures in 25 games.
"Artese is a playmaker at the guard position. We are looking forward to him stepping and battling at the point guard position, but he has the versatility to slide over and play any of the other guard spots," said Simmons. "We think he will provide the same kind of lift to team on the floor like Yak (Yakeema Rose) and Tiger (
Tiger Booker) did the last two seasons. We look forward to adding him to our EIU Basketball family."
Stapleton joins Zion Fruster (6'2, Guard, Univ. of Virginia Wise), Terry McMorris (6'7, forward, Link Year Prep), Obadiah Curtis (6'5, guard, Arkansas State), Sekou Kalle (6'10", forward, Evansville) and Blake Goodman (6'7", forward, Fisk) as newcomers to the Panthers roster.
