Before the 2025-26 season, no American University men’s basketball player in history had made an all-Patriot League team in their freshman season.
This year, Madden Collins became the first. The sophomore guard from Columbia, South Carolina was named to the Third Team All-Patriot League team in the March following his freshman season.
“It’s a good award, I’m happy for it,” Collins said. “It’s something I want to build off for this upcoming season.”
Eagles head coach Duane Simpkins is no stranger to coaching All-Patriot League players. Collins is the sixth to receive the honor in Simpkins’ three years at AU.
“When you have good players, it’s great to see that they’re being recognized,” Simpkins said.
Since the All-Patriot League teams were introduced at the end of the 1990-91 season, only 10 freshmen have been named to one of the three teams. Collins referred to it as an esteemed list — 13-year NBA veteran and current Atlanta Hawks starting point guard CJ McCollum and 11-year NBA veteran Mike Muscala represent it well. To Collins, it was both a testament to the season’s hard work and his ultimate goal.
“That’s eventually my goal, all I want to be able to say [is] I played in the NBA,” Collins said. “There have been guys from the Patriot League to have successful NBA careers. I just wanna be the next name on that list.”
Before coming to American, Collins put together an impressive resume playing at Christ School in Asheville, North Carolina. There, he became a three-time state champion and an All-State and All-Conference player his senior year, and put up a 105-18 record over four years.
“I won a lot in high school, and I want to be able to bring that success here,” Collins said. “Whatever it does — scoring, rebounding, playmaking on the defensive side of the ball — just anything to help with winning.”
To Simpkins, what stood out in his recruitment was the versatile defense Collins could bring to a team fresh off of a championship.
“He’s 6’5” now, but when we recruited him, he was 6’2”,” Simpkins said. “He can guard a point guard, he can guard a wing. I thought he had some good defensive versatility.”
Most Patriot League schools’ recruiting is kept to a local-level. However, American has managed to expand its recruitment outside of the D.C. area, which is how they recruited Collins.
“Coach Jackie [Manuel] has been really integral for us in the recruitment down in North Carolina, South Carolina; he has a lot of AAU ties there,” assistant coach Isaiah Tate said.
Tate first saw Collins at an NCAA Academy in South Carolina during the early stages of his recruitment.
“He stood out in every game that I saw from a combo guard standpoint,” Tate said. “It’s good that he is versatile in terms of being able to guard the one through potentially the four.”
Simpkins’ system involves a high number of 3-pointers taken per game, and Collins's ability to drive to the basket was something that benefited his teammates when he came to AU.
“We value guys that can shoot and guys like Geoff Sprouse, Matt Mayock. They greatly benefit from having someone who can penetrate, collapse the defense and kick out to them,” Simpkins said.
When Collins arrived, he wasted no time making his name known. In the second game of the season, he dropped 25 points on 11-for-17 shooting in his Bender Arena debut, defeating future Ivy League Champion University of Pennsylvania.
“I remember just playing,” Collins said. “I was making reads, reacting, I was playing hard defensively, talking a little bit of trash, it was just a good game overall.”
Collins’s 4.8 rebounds per game led the team in that category this season and his 1.7 offensive rebounds per game are something that fit perfectly into Simpkins’ system and helped fuel his All-Patriot team campaign.
As the season went on, Collins established himself as a clear scoring option for the team, making the most of his minutes as a key rotational player.
“He led us in scoring, a very good offensive rebounder,” Simpkins said, “I think that’s the area where he really impacted winning for us.”
Collins’ scoring reached a new level on Jan. 10 in a loss to Holy Cross when he dropped 26 points on 10-for-17 shooting.
As the season progressed, Collins was routinely the team’s leading scorer in each game, shooting with high efficiency as he became more and more of a focal point for the team.
“Just knowing my spot and knowing when to score,” Collins said. “When defense collapsed on me and so many eyes are on me, just get the ball out, that was the balance I was learning, especially when conference play hit and teams are scouting differently.”
In the Eagles’ final game of the season, during a Patriot League playoff quarterfinal loss to Boston University, Collins dropped 22 points, four shy of his career-high 26.
“Every game is a battle,” Collins said. “The rest of the Patriot League games it was all close games, so every game you have to come prepared.”
With a high bar set for next season, both the coaches and Collins are ready to make the push to raise the bar higher after a historic freshman year.
“You’ve just got to continue to get yourself uncomfortable, continue to exhaust your potential,” Tate said. “We want our guys going as hard as you can every single rep.”
This article was edited by Matthias Jaylen Sandoval, Jack Stashower and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Jaden Maitland Anderson, Rena Jalon, Abigail Jose and Nicole Kariuki. Fact-checking done by Luca Palma Poth.
