2008-09 ATLANTIC 10 HONORABLE MENTION ALL-CONFERENCE
2007-08 ATLANTIC 10 ALL-ROOKIE TEAM

As a Sophomore (2008-09)
Started all 34 games ... second to Aaron Jackson in minutes per game at 34.6 ... led the team in rebounding (7.6 rpg.), blocked shots (83) & steals (71) and was second in scoring (13.1 ppg.) ... ranked 22nd nationally in blocked shots per game (2.4), 43rd in steals per game (2.1) and 42nd in field goal percentage (.546) ... led the Atlantic 10 in steals per game, ranked third in blocked shots per game and was fourth in both rebounds per game and field goal percentage ... named honorable mention All-Atlantic 10 ... had the unique stat line of registering more assists (77), blocks and steals than turnovers (68) ... his 71 steals eclipsed the school's single season record of 70 set by guard Clayton Adams in 1988 and his 2.1 steals/g. average was the best by a Duquesne player since Mike James averaged 2.2 spg. in `93 ... the blocks were the second-most by a DU player in a season and his 7.6 rpg. average was the highest by a Dukes player since Derrick Alston averaged 9.3 in 1993 ... shot .546 from the field with 37 3-pointers (.343) ... had a team-best 84 offensive rebounds ... scored in double digits 26 times and posted double-digit rebounds on eight occasions ... had seven double-doubles (20-12 at USC Upstate, 22-10 at Duke, 18-10 vs. North Carolina Central, 12-11 vs. Charlotte, 14-10 at Saint Louis, 22-14 at La Salle & 15-10 in the A-10 tournament title game vs. Temple) ... scored 20 or more six times with a career-high of 22 set at then-No. 7 (AP) Duke and tied at La Salle ... added a career high 14 boards, five assists, three steals and three blocks at La Salle ... named A-10 co-Player of the Week following the Duke game (Nov. 30) ... had a career-best six steals vs. High Point ... set a new career high with six rejections at Saint Louis ... also had five blocks in the A-10 Championship opener vs. UMass ... blocked four shots on six other occasions ... had five steals at St. Bonaventure and four at home against Dayton ... shot better from the field (.546) than he did from the foul line (50-of-98, .510) ... led the team in scoring seven times and in rebounding 22 times ... had a team-high 40 dunks (60 career) ... blocked 13 shots in four A-10 Championship games ... the total was three shy of the Championship record set by Saint Joseph's Rodney Blake in three games in 2005 ... played 153 of a possible 160 minutes at Atlantic City and 46 of a possible 50 minutes in the double overtime NIT loss at Virginia Tech ... shot .610 from the field in four A-10 Championship games ... underwent successful surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left ankle on May 7 prior to the season and was cleared to begin individual workouts in early October.

DID YOU KNOW?
DU's Damian Saunders and Massachusetts' Tony Gaffney were the only two players in the Atlantic 10 who accumulated more assists, steals and blocks than turnovers in 2008-09. In 64 career games, Saunders has 125 assists, 116 steals and 122 blocks with 100 turnovers.

As a Freshman (2007-08)
Played in all 30 games with 19 starts on his way to earning a spot on the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie team ... averaged 6.5 points in 22.3 minutes per game ... led the team with 45 steals and was second with a 5.2 rebounds per game average ... was third on the team in blocks (39) and fourth in 3-pointers made (24-of-69, .348) ... his blocked shot total was the second-highest ever by a DU freshman (the record of 54 was set by Derrick Alston in 1990-91) ... was the fifth player in school history to be named Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week at least three times in the same season (Nov. 18, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30) ... Tony Petrarca (1987), Tom Pipkins (1995) and Kevin Price (1995) each were named Rookie of the Week four times and Robert Mitchell was tabbed five times in 2006-07... had three or more steals in a game eight times, three or more blocks five times and three or more assists on seven occasions ... hit at least two 3-pointers in a game eight times ... scored in double-digits six times and led the team in rebounding seven times ... had 19 points, four rebounds, six assists, two steals and no turnovers in his first college game (vs. Howard on Nov. 9) ... did not commit a turnover until the third game of the season ... pulled down 13 rebounds in 20 minutes in DU's 92-77 win at Oakland and added 10 boards in 27 minutes at La Salle on Feb. 9 ... went 4-of-6 from the 3-point arc in scoring 14 points against Saint Joseph's ... added five assists, five rebounds and three steals in 34 minutes against the Hawks ... was second on the team with 20 dunks ... had three slams in a 3:15 span of the second half of a 101-84 win at La Salle.

Prep School
Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass. (head coach Bill Barton) ... averaged 8.0 points, 10.5 rebounds and close to three blocked shots per game for a Notre Dame Prep (Mass.) team that finished 32-3 and won the national prep school championship in 2006-07 under current DU assistant Bill Barton ... played alongside former Kansas State star and Miami Heat draftee Michael Beasley ... was ranked as the sixth-best post-graduate player in the nation by Scout.com ... was also rated as a "four star" recruit by Tom Konchalski of the HSBI Report.

High School
Crosby High School in Waterbury, Conn. (head coach Nick Augelli) ... was a member - along with DU sophomore guard/forward B.J. Monteiro - of Crosby's 2005 Division I state championship team ... averaged 22.5 points, 15.8 rebounds and 8.0 blocks in helping Crosby to 23 wins and a third-straight league title in 2006 ... named to the New Haven Register 2005-06 All State Team ... was named all-county three times.

Personal
Is the third-oldest of five children ... enrolled at Duquesne in late August and began classes on Sept. 4,2007 ... also received recruiting interest from Marquette, Providence, Tennessee and Cincinnati among others ... history major ... full name is Damian Stewart Saunders ... date of birth: 11/1/88.

Saunders' Career Stats

Saunders 2008-09 Game-by-Game (Sophomore)

OPPONENT	  M	Fg-At	3m-At	Ft-At	O-D-Reb	PF	A	TO	B	S	Pts
HIGH POINT	*22	8-11	3-4	2-4	3-1-4	1	3	2	3	6	21
at. St. Francis	*19	5-6	0-1	1-2	3-4-7	4	1	3	3	3	11
FURMAN	        *27	7-12	0-2	1-4	2-2-4	1	3	0	0	1	15
at SC Upstate	*34	7-12	3-7	3-4	2-10-12	4	1	1	1	2	20
at Duke	        *36	9-13	1-2	3-5	5-5-10	2	3	3	2	1	22
at Pittsburgh	*37	6-10	2-4	1-3	3-3-6	2	1	7	4	3	15
at Radford	*33	4-11	1-2	2-2	2-4-6	4	4	1	2	2	11
W. VIRGINIA	*35	7-12	0-2	2-3	3-4-7	4	1	3	2	2	16
ODU	        *37	3-8	1-2	2-2	4-5-9	3	1	4	1	0	9
RICE	        *35	5-8	1-3	2-4	3-6-9	4	3	1	1	1	13
NC CENTRAL	*31	8-10	1-2	1-3	3-7-10	3	2	8	3	0	18
at Robt Morris	*32	4-5	1-2	5-6	1-6-7	3	2	1	2	2	14
BL. GREEN	*38	7-11	1-3	1-2	2-7-9	2	1	1	4	2	16
CHARLOTTE	*33	5-10	1-4	1-5	4-7-11	5	4	0	2	0	12
at St. Bona.	*32	2-7	0-4	3-5	4-6-10	5	1	2	3	5	7
GEO. WASH.	*40	4-7	1-3	2-4	5-3-8	3	4	0	2	1	11
DAYTON	        *35	5-9	1-3	2-4	3-4-7	4	5	0	1	4	13
at St. Joseph's	*39	7-11	4-7	2-2	3-6-9	3	3	3	2	2	20
at Fordham	*35	1-4	0-1	2-5	0-9-9	3	1	4	0	3	4
ST. BONA.	*25	4-9	1-3	2-5	2-3-5	4	1	1	3	3	11
at St. Louis	*40	6-13	0-2	2-3	2-8-10	5	0	2	6	3	14
XAVIER	        *30	2-4	2-4	0-0	1-5-6	5	2 	3	3	2	6
at Richmond	*32	6-9	2-4	0-0	5-4-9	4	2	1	1	1	14
TEMPLE	        *35	6-13	0-3	1-1	1-5-6	3	3	2	2	3	13
at La Salle	*38	9-15	1-3	3-6	1-13-14	0	5	3	3	3	22
UMASS	        *40	8-18	1-5	1-3	3-4-7	1	3	2	2	4	18
RHODE IS.	*40	5-11	2-5	0-0	1-5-6	1	3	2	4	3	12
SAINT LOUIS	*32	1-5	1-2	1-2	2-1-3	4	0	1	0	1	4
at Dayton	*35	2-8	0-4	0-0	1-7-8	3	3	1	4	3	4
vs. UMass	*34	4-8	1-4	0-2	0-4-4	3	1	2	5	1	9
vs. Rhode Is.	*40	9-11	2-2	0-2	3-2-5	2	4	3	3	1	20
vs. Dayton	*39	5-9	0-3	0-0	2-4-6	3	4	0	4	3	10
vs. Temple	*40	7-13	1-4	0-1	4-6-10	3	0	1	1	0	15
at Va. Tech	*46	1-5	1-2	2-4	1-4-5	2	2	0	4	0	5
* - indicates game started

Saunders 2007-08 Game-by-Game (Freshman)

OPPONENT	  M	Fg-At	3m-At	Ft-At	O-D-Reb	PF	A	TO	B	S	Pts
HOWARD  	 20	8-11	3-5	0-1	2-2-4	0	6	0	1	2	19
WSSU	        *22	5-7	2-4	0-2	2-7-9	1	4	0	1	1	12
at Rice	         19	3-6	0-0	4-4	5-3-8	2	1	2	4	4	10
at Oakland	*20	4-8	0-4	1-2	5-8-13	0	2	1	1	3	9
NIAGARA 	 21	1-2	0-0	1-5	3-2-5	3	2	2	0	0	3
vs. Northridge	*18	1-5	1-3	0-0	0-4-4	3	1	1	2	1	3
at Drake	 19	2-4	0-1	2-2	2-4-6	3	0	3	3	1	6
PITTSBURGH	 18	2-6	0-4	0-0	0-2-2	3	0	1	0	1	4
at W. Virginia	*23	2-5	2-2	0-0	0-5-5	2	2	1	0	0	6
ST FRANCIS	 17	5-7	2-4	0-0	1-4-5	0	3	0	2	4	12
ROBT MORRIS	*29	4-7	0-2	0-1	2-5-7	0	1	4	4	2	8
USC UPSTATE	 13	1-2	0-1	0-0	0-1-1	1	0	1	1	0	2
at Bowl. Green	*23	4-6	1-1	0-0	2-2-4	0	4	1	1	3	9
FORDHAM  	*25	4-9	0-1	2-3	4-5-9	2	1	0	0	1	10
at Rhode Is.	*22	3-4	2-2	0-1	3-2-5	2	0	1	1	2	8
at Fordham	*28	0-0	0-0	1-2	0-2-2	3	1	1	0	0	1
ST. BONA.	*17	2-6	0-2	0-0	1-3-4	3	1	1	0	3	4
GEO. WASH.	 18	2-4	0-1	3-4	1-3-4	1	1	1	1	3	7
UMASS   	*25	2-7	2-3	0-3	4-1-5	1	1	0	0	0	6
at St. Bona.	 20	1-1	1-1	1-2	0-4-4	2	0	0	0	1	4
ST. JOSEPH'S	*34	5-9	4-6	0-1	0-5-5	2	5	2	1	3	14
at La Salle	*27	4-9	0-3	0-2	2-8-10	2	3	1	1	1	8
at Dayton	*30	4-10	0-4	0-0	1-3-4	1	0	0	1	1	8
RICHMOND	*25	1-3	1-3	0-0	1-2-3	2	1	2	3	3	3
at Xavier	 23	0-3	0-2	0-0	0-3-3	3	1	1	3	0	0
LA SALLE	*28	2-6	1-3	0-1	2-5-7	0	1	2	2	1	5
at Charlotte	 19	3-5	2-2	0-0	2-4-6	4	3	1	1	1	8
at Temple	*27	1-5	0-2	1-2	1-3-4	4	1	1	1	2	3
SAINT LOUIS	*26	1-3	0-2	0-0	0-4-4	4	1	1	2	1	2
vs. La Salle	*13	1-2	0-1	0-0	1-3-4	3	1	0	2	0	2
* - indicates game started