WOOSTER, OH – Wooster senior guard Jamir Billings (Lorain, OH/Lorain) has been named to the Bevo Francis Award Watch List, which was announced on Jan. 14. The Bevo Francis Award is given annually to the best non-Division I men’s college basketball player.

This season, Billings led Wooster to an 11-0 start, marking the Fighting Scots’ fifth time with a 10-0 or better start. He has five 20-point games, including a season-high 28 points in Wooster’s win over Wittenberg on January 4. This season, Billings has four games with at least four steals, three games with at least 10 rebounds, and four games with at least five assists. Billings scored his 1,000th point in December and became the program’s all-time leader in steals.
The senior is averaging 15.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.3 steals, and 4.3 assists so far this season, and as of January 13, he ranks fifth nationally in steals, 12th in steals per game, and 43rd in assists. His efforts have helped Wooster rank in the top-30 in field goal percentage (48.1%) and the top-40 in opposition field goal percentage (39.4%).

Billings has been a standout since his first year, earning several honors, including D3hoops.com Region 7 Rookie of the Year and the NCAC Newcomer of the Year and Top Defensive Player, becoming the first player in NCAC history to earn both awards in the same season. He broke Wooster’s single-season record for steals with 84 and set the record for the most assists in a game with 12. He became the first player in program history to have three games with 10 assists, and the first to accomplish that feat in consecutive games. He took over the single-game steals record with 10 at Hiram and went on to finish his debut season sixth nationally in steals, 10th in assists, 13th in steals per game (3.00), and 18th in assists per game (5.9).

As a sophomore, he was a first-team All-NCAC selection and finished the season in the top-20 nationally in steals with 69. As a sophomore, Billings joined Wooster’s Antwyan Reynolds as the only Scots with multiple 65-steal seasons and moved into the program’s top-10 list for career steals. Billings passed out 140 assists as a sophomore, becoming the first Scot with two seasons with at least 140 helpers. He scored a career-high 30 points against Wabash in the championship game of the NCAC Tournament, where his 10 3-pointers broke Rick Hochstetler’s single-game program record from 1997.
 
Last season, Billings became the first two-time winner of the NCAC Top Defensive Player award and collected a third all-conference honor. The NCAC 40th Anniversary All-Decade Team qualifier ranked third nationally with 164 assists and eighth nationally with 5.9 assists per game. Elsewhere, Billings’ 84 steals were the fifth-most in Div. III and his three steals per night also ranked in the top-five nationally. He facilitated the offense that boasted Divison III’s second-best team field-goal percentage. Billings closed out his junior campaign with 164 assists and 84 steals. He became the program’s all-time leader in assists in the regular-season finale at Wabash and moved up to second all-time in steals at season’s end.

The award is named after the late Bevo Francis, who earned national acclaim and All-American status for Rio Grande College in the 1950s. It started being awarded in the 2015-16 season. Only one winner has come from Division III since the award’s inception.