Bridgewater, N.J. – Le Moyne College graduate student guard Kaiyem Cleary (Manchester, England/Redemption Christian Academy (NY) (Florida Southern/Florida Southwestern/Ball State) has earned his second consecutive Northeast Conference men's basketball Player of the Week recognition, as announced by the conference office on Monday afternoon.
 
In the team's 87-74 victory over LIU on Saturday, Cleary scored a program-record 43 points, while also grabbing a team-high seven rebounds and blocking a pair of shots. The previous program record of 41 points was set by Richard Kenyon against Saint Joseph's on January 7, 1955 and then tied by Philip Harlow against Clarkson during the 1970-71 campaign. Cleary's 43 points are the most by any player in Division I this season in regulation and are the third-most overall (Denver's Tommy Bruner had 49 (35 in regulation) and South Dakota's Kaleb Stewart had 44 (23 in regulation) against each other on Thursday night in double overtime). His total is the highest by an NEC player since Syracuse-native Charles Pride had 44 for Bryant on February 3, 2022 against Saint Francis and is tied for the 12th-most on the NEC single-game scoring list. Cleary connected on 14-of-25 shot attempts, including a career-best 6-of-10 from three-point range, while going a career-best 9-for-9 from the foul line. He netted 18 of his points in the first half and followed with 25 in the second half (a total that in itself would be his career high for a game at the NCAA level). Cleary's 14 made field goals are tied for the sixth-most in a game in the program's history and are the most since C.J. Asuncion-Byrd had 15 on March 6, 2019 in the NE10 semifinals against Merrimack. He is the second Dolphin this year to go 9-of-9 from the foul line in a game after graduate student forward Luke Sutherland (Syracuse, N.Y./West Genesee/Siena/Bryant) did so in the program's first win over a DI team as a DI program at CSUN on November 21.

Through 18 games played, he leads the team in scoring average (16.1), free throws made (54), total rebounds (104) and rebound average (5.8). He leads the Northeast Conference in free throw percentage (.844) and ranks third in in scoring average, fourth in field goal percentage (.454) and three-pointers per game (2.1) and seventh in rebound average. Through six conference games, he is averaging a league-best 22.5 points, and 6.8 rebounds, the eighth-best in the NEC. He also leads the conference in three-point field goal percentage (.476) and three-pointers per game (3.3), while ranking third in free throw percentage (.862)
 
Le Moyne (9-11, 4-2 NEC) starts a stretch of four straight games on the road on Thursday at Wagner College at 7:00 p.m.