ESP/ARG - Another ACB Player of the Year gong for Argentina's Scola

MADRID (ACB) - Luis Scola has been named as the ACB's player of the year for the 2006/07 regular season, reclaiming the crown he also won in 2005.

The Argentina ace helped Tau Ceramica finish the campaign in top spot with a 26-8 record, and they will play reigning Spanish champions Unicaja Malaga in the play-off quarter-finals.

That match is a repeat of last year's final, which saw Unicaja beat Tau 3-0 to walk off with the title.

Scola won the player of the week award five times during this season, which included the highest individual mark of the campaign when he recorded a 43-point valuation in week 11.

That was set in Tau's 97-74 victory over DKV Joventut, when Scola scored 24 points on 16 of 18 shooting, hauled down 12 rebounds and handed out one assist.

The power forward, who averaged 17 points in his 29 matches, also picked up the player of the month award for February.

"I am very happy, it is a very nice prize, to win it over all of these players is very difficult," he said on Monday.

Scola was also named in the ACB's 'ideal five' team of the year for the fourth successive season, with his Tau team-mate Pablo Prigioni, Rudy Fernandez of DKV Joventut, Winterthur FC Barcelona's Juan Carlos Navarro and Real Madrid's Felipe Reyes making up the quintet.

Scola added: "It has been a good season, there have been four years with at least two Tau Ceramica players in the team and this shows things have gone well.

"For example, Prigioni has had two incredible years."

Navarro was last season's ACB player of the year, while he, along with Reyes and Fernandez, was part of Spain's gold medal-winning squad at the 2006 FIBA World Championships.

Mike Perez
FIBA