ST. LOUIS -- Juniors Spencer Haldeman of UNI and Nate Kennell of Bradley and sophomore Tyreke Key of Indiana State headline the list of selections for the 2019 Missouri Valley Conference specialty teams for men’s basketball.  Haldeman (Peosta, Iowa) and Kennell (Metamora, Ill.) have been tabbed the conference’s Team Captains for the All-Bench Team, while Key (Celina, Tenn.) is the league’s Team Captain for the Most-Improved Team.

The teams, which were selected by the league's newspaper beat writers, are comprised of a minimum of five student-athletes (top five vote-getters, plus ties) on each squad.

Haldeman ranks third for UNI in scoring with 7.9 points per game despite not starting any of the team's 31 games.  He ranks second on the team with 50 three-point makes and converts a team-best 86.2 percent from the foul line.  Kennell also is his team's third-leading scorer, averaging 9.4 points per contest, and didn't start any of Bradley's league games.  For the season, he ranks second for Bradley with 56 made three-pointers and also contributed 60 assists and 19 steals.

Key, meanwhile, became just the fourth-ever Sycamore to lead the MVC in overall scoring averaging 17.3 points per game and tallying 518 points. He joins Larry Bird, John Sherman Williams and David Moss as the only four in the history of the program to lead the Valley in scoring. His 44.3 percent mark from 3-point range ranked fourth in the league and his 34.2 minutes played was tops in the conference. He scored a career-high 32 points in the road overtime victory over Valparaiso and hit four 3-pointers in the dominating home win on February 20 against Illinois State. Key recorded 26 double digit scoring games this year and went over the 20-point mark 10 times and the 30-point standard once.  He averaged 8.3 points per game as a freshman last year.