FOREST, Va. – Leading the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) in steals, Kody Clayton (Cary, N.C.) authored his best showing yet against Greensboro College, and for his efforts, he closed the unofficial first half of his senior campaign by representing the Guilford College men's basketball team and getting recognized as the ODAC Defensive Player of the Week for the week ending on December 7^th, as announced by the conference offices on Monday afternoon.

Nabbing 11 steals in just a pair of games for the Quakers, Clayton upped his season mark for thefts to 27, the 11^th-most in Division-III thus far this season. A great deal of his strong defensive work came in GC's Monday victory over Greensboro College as Guilford came away with 33 takeaways from the Pride while holding the opposition to .468 from the field and just 2-of-8 from three in a blowout victory. A lot of that work was thanks to the senior guard, who came away with a career-high eight of the team's 17 steals in the win, reaching that total in a mere 17 minutes of game action. His thefts figure stands tied as the seventh-highest in a single-game in Division-III to this point this season, and is the most the ODAC has featured. For the Quakers, it is the most since Tyler Dearman '23, MISM '24 set the program-record with 11 against Methodist in their 2023-24 season-opener. Clayton added a pair of defensive rebounds in that contest before snaring a trio of defensive boards among his five total on Wednesday night against No. 14 nationally ranked Roanoke College. In that contest, he captured a trio of steals among the 13 takeaways GC gathered while the Quakers held the Maroons to just 4-of-14 from three in the game.

The league-leader in steals and steals per game, the floor-general ranks 14^th nationally with his average mark of 3.38 on the season, a figure that is on-pace to easily surpass the 2024-25 conference-leading mark of 2.03. If maintained, Clayton would post the ODAC's most steals per game since the University of Lynchburg's Steven Echols grabbed 3.6 per game in 2009-10.

The second Quaker to grab ODAC weekly recognition this season, Clayton joins fellow senior Gabe Proctor (Apex, N.C.) as honorees this winter after Proctor claimed ODAC Offensive Player of the Week recognition for the week ending on November 16^th. He is the first Quaker to get ODAC Defensive Player of the Week since Caleb Farrish '25 got it for the time frame of December 23^rd through January 5^th last season.

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