New London — Early in his early career, Zuri Pavlin figured out his mission on the basketball court.

Pavlin admittedly lacked the skill to be a scoring machine but had a competitor's heart and burning desire to contribute in other less glamorous ways.

So he decided to make rebounding his thing.

"I just love doing anything that I can to help my team, that's the bottom line," Pavlin said. "I'm not the tallest guy, I'm not the strongest guy, but I'm one of the most tenacious. I just love going up and getting the rebound."

Eventually, Pavlin battled his way right into the Connecticut College men's basketball record books.

He became the program's all-time leading rebounder in a loss at Middlebury on Jan. 7. About two weeks later, he scored his 1,000th career point.

The former meant more to him than the latter.

"I feel like that's my biggest accomplishment because it's just about heart and desire more than anything else and I pride myself on that," Pavlin said of the rebounding record.

A 6-foot-5 senior captain from New York, Pavlin added eight more rebounds to his record total in a 70-63 non-conference loss to Fisher College on Wednesday, giving him 881 in his career.

Pavlin's on pace to average a double-double for his career, checking in 11.7 points and 10 rebounds prior to Wednesday's game.

"That's amazing," coach Tom Satran said. "The numbers are one thing, but there's no number for attitude. His attitude is really extraordinary. And he's the nicest person off the court you'd ever want to be around."

Pavlin is not a late arrival to the rebounding party. He led the New England Small College Athletic Conference as a freshman (10.8) and again as a sophomore (11.5). He's averaging a team-best 9.1 this season.

Long before he arrived at Conn College, he embraced the blue collar role. An older cousin, Julian Pavlin, provided an added dose of motivation.

"He's always been pushing me around and talking a lot of smack, so that's definitely been part of it for me," Pavlin said. "We played together growing up every single day."

Pavlin honed his craft at Brewster Academy, a prep school powerhouse in New Hampshire. He played with Chris McCullough, who's now in the NBA with the Brooklyn Nets, and other future high level Division I players.

Practices were his proving ground. Although undersized, he figured out a way to grab his share of rebounds with heart, hustle and smarts.

"It was really hard going up against them in practice every single day," Pavlin said. "Those guys would be blocking my shots. But one thing they couldn't match was my intensity in practice and that really helped push those guys, too."

With five regular season games remaining in his career, Pavlin can still add to his rebounding record total. He can score a bit, too, averaging 12.8 points, as well as doing the little things to help his team.

"He's off-the-charts in terms of his unselfishness," Satran said. "He's a great teammate. ... He sacrifices his body and own offense for other people. He's been like that since the first day. I've been very lucky to have him."

The Camels (11-7, 2-4) still have some work to do to secure a spot in the conference tournament.

"This team wants to win so badly, I can't emphasize that enough," Pavlin said. "Tonight, we just didn't bring it. But I know on Saturday we're going to come back and turn it around."

g.keefe@theday.com