Hawaii Pacific guards West, Meza earn All-PacWest honors for Sharks

HONOLULU – Dynamic duo in the backcourt.

Hawaii Pacific University guards Joshua West and Quentin Meza became the second pair of Sharks in head coach Jesse Nakanishi’s three seasons to earn all-PacWest honors on Wednesday, seeing West named to the conference’s 1st-team while Meza earned 2nd-team honors in his first season in the islands.

It’s West’s second All-PacWest selection in two seasons with the Sharks. The 6-foot-3 guard from Chicago, Ill., led the Sharks in scoring as he averaged the fourth-most points per game in the conference this year with 17.0 points per night. West also racked up 1.9 steals per game, tied for third-most per contest in the PacWest.

He also became the first Shark to earn a place on the All-PacWest 1st-Team since Niksha Federico did it back in the 2017-18 season.

“His story is just amazing,” head coach Jesse Nakanishi said about his star senior guard. “The steps he’s taken [as a player] after betting on himself in so many ways have been awesome.”

Meza earned a spot on the All-PacWest 2nd-team after averaging 16.1 points and 3.4 assists per game in his first season with the Sharks, ranking among the top 10 players in the conference for both categories. The 6-foot guard scored 10 or more points in 16 of the Sharks’ final 17 games of the regular season, including a 30-point explosion to help HPU to a road win over Vanguard on January 31.

The junior also became the first player in head coach Jesse Nakanishi’s three-year tenure to win multiple conference Player of the Week awards, earning PacWest POTW honors in both November and the end of January for a few scoring explosions that helped the Sharks to winning weeks.

“He grabbed this opportunity by the horns and just ran with it,” Nakanishi said about Meza’s impact in his debut season in the islands. “He gets to play with a lot of freedom, and we believe in him a lot to take big shots.”

The Hawaii Pacific University men’s basketball team returns to the PacWest Tournament on Thursday as the No. 4 seed, taking on No. 5 Vanguard in the quarterfinals with a date against top-seeded Point Loma awaiting the winner. The Sharks were placed seventh in the most recent NCAA West Region rankings as teams jockey for at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament.

Tip-off between the Lions and Sharks on Thursday is at 12:45 p.m. HT/2:45 p.m. PT and can be seen on the PacWest Network.