DURANGO, CO – June 3, 2008 – The Fort Lewis College men's basketball program announced earlier today that Kirk Archibeque has accepted an offer of admission and will play basketball next season for the Skyhawks.

 

Archibeque, a 6-foot-9 center from Cortez, CO, is a 2003 graduate of Montezuma-Cortez High School and has spent the last three seasons playing at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) where he played in 96 games for the Bears. 

 

Archibeque comes to Fort Lewis with a tremendous amount of college basketball experience. In his three seasons at UNC Archibeque has scored 1,173 points and has grabbed 610 rebounds. His career averages are impressive, 12.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. In his career at UNC Archibeque recorded 15 double-doubles and scored 10 points or more 62 times, including a career-high 30 points against Texas Pan-American. Archibeque was named to the NCAA Division I All-Independent team following both the 2004-05 and 2005 -06 seasons. In 2006-07 Archibeque was named Honorable Mention All-Big Sky Conference.   

 

When asked why he chose Fort Lewis Archibeque said, “I am very excited to coming back home to Fort Lewis College to play my final year of college basketball. Fort Lewis has established itself as an elite NCAA Division II program and I am honored to get the opportunity to be a part of a great basketball program. I chose to come to Fort Lewis because it is very close to home, I have played three years of college basketball and hardly anyone in my family has seen me play in person. I know this team has great talent and I feel that we can be very successful and continue the great basketball tradition at Fort Lewis. I am very thankful for the opportunity to come back home and play in front of my family and friends.”

 

“We are pleased to have Kirk join our program,” said head men's basketball coach Bob Hofman. “We've been blessed to have great local talent in our program over the years, adding Kirk will help of continue our successful run here at The Fort.”  

 

Archibeque joins Eric Price (Washington, DC/Blinn Junior College), Matthias Weissl (Salzburg, Austria/Roaring Fork) and Torrey Udall (Carbondale, CO/Roaring Fork) in the Skyhawks' 2008 recruiting class. All three players signed with the Skyhawks in April.

 

 Fort Lewis is coming off of the most successful season in school history (24-6). Fort Lewis has won three RMAC championships (2002, 2005 and 2008) in the last seven years and has won six of the last seven RMAC West Championships, while advancing to the NCAA division II tournament five times in seven years.