Men's Basketball

AJ Green of UNI Earns MVC Larry Bird Trophy

LARRY BIRD MVC PLAYER OF THE YEAR:  AJ Green, UNI
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR:  Marcus Domask, Southern Illinois
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR:  Marcus Domask, Southern Illinois
DEFENSIVE MVP:  Isaiah Brown, UNI
SIXTH-MAN OF THE YEAR:  Marquise Kennedy, Loyola

All-Conference Release (PDF)
  • The First Team all-MVC team features three sophomores and two juniors, and only four seniors are among the Top 15 players as voted on by head coaches, sports information directors and a media panel. 
  • Before this year, the last time two sophomores from the same school earned first-team honors the same year was in 2014 (Fred VanVleet & Ron Baker of Wichita State). 
  • Before Marcus Domask this year, the last three freshmen to earn first- or second-team all-MVC honors include Rodney Buford of Creighton (1996, 2nd), Doug McDermott of Creighton (2011, 1st) and Landry Shamet of Wichita State (2017, 1st).   
  • From 1962-present only four times has the league had as few as just one senior on the first-team unit (1976, 1990, 2005, 2015 each had only one senior on the First Team).  Every all-MVC team since at least World War II has had a senior on the First Team.

ST. LOUIS -- For just the third time in Missouri Valley Conference history, a sophomore student-athlete has earned the Larry Bird Trophy, presented to the MVC men’s basketball Player of the Year.  Sophomore AJ Green of UNI joins Doug McDermott of Creighton (2012) and Fred VanVleet of Wichita State (2014) on that illustrious list, as announced by the league office today.

This season Green helped the Panthers to their first regular-season crown since 2010, and he leads the league in scoring with his 19.7 average.  He also averaged a league-best 21.8 points per game in league play.  The sharpshooter from Cedar Falls (Iowa) High enters this week with 1,100 career points.  That figure is fourth all-time for point totals for MVC student-athletes who played their freshmen and sophomore seasons in the MVC. After scoring the fifth-most points by an MVC freshman in league history in 2019, Green is climbing the charts for most scoring by a sophomore. He enters this week with 591 points this year and needs 18 more points to crack the league’s Top 10 for points for an MVC sophomore.

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Earlier this season, Green established a school record by making 44-straight free throws. He currently leads the league and ranks fourth nationally with his 91.7 percent accuracy from the foul stripe. He received 39 first-place votes and 129 total points to outdistance Loyola's Cameron Krutwig, who had the remaining 10 first-place tallies and 98 total points.  Green joins Jason Daisy (1997), Adam Koch (2010) and Seth Tuttle (2015) as Panthers to earn the league's top men's honor.

Voting was conducted by coaches, sports information directors and a media panel (voters could not vote for their own student-athlete.)  Including this year, 0 freshmen, 3 sophomores, 17 juniors (seven of whom repeated) and 32 seniors have won the award (spanning 1969-2020). 

Green's teammate -- Isaiah Brown -- is the league's Defensive Player of the Year.  A native of Flower Mound, Texas, Brown leads UNI in steals per game and earned a spot on the league's all-Defensive first-team unit for a second-straight season.  UNI's top lock-down defender, Brown also chips in 9.2 points per game, 38 three-point goals and 70 assists -- all career highs for the senior.  As a team, UNI surrendered just 64.7 points per game in league play and ranks second in MVC contests in field goal percentage defense.  Brown is the second UNI player to earn MVC Defensive Player of the Year honors (Kwadzo Ahelegbe, 2011).  The league began selecting a Defensive Player of the Year in 1989.

The league's Freshman of the Year and Newcomer of the Year is Marcus Domask of Southern Illinois.  It marks the eighth time in MVC history that one player has swept both awards.  A native of Waupun, Wis., Domask helped lead SIU, which was picked last in the league's preseason poll in October, to a fifth-place finish and 10 conference wins.  He leads MVC freshmen this season with 428 points. Notably, in league history 23 freshmen have scored 400+ points, including 11 since 2000.  Nine of the MVC freshmen since 2000 to hit 400 points also earned the league’s Freshman of the Year award, including Domask.  His 428 points are 15th-best all-time in MVC history for a freshman, and the only previous Saluki to achieve 400 points since SIU joined the Conference was MVC Hall of Famer Kent Williams (440 in 1999-00).   The MVC began selecting a Freshman of the Year award in 1986, and he's the seventh Saluki to win the honor (joining his head coach Bryan Mullins, who won it in 2006).  The MVC began its Newcomer of the Year program in 1969, and four former Salukis have earned that distinction (Rolan Roberts in 2002 was the last to do it.)  

The MVC also selects a “Sixth Man Award” recipient, and for the second time it goes to a Loyola Chicago student-athlete.  The honor is presented to the league's top reserve player (one who has started fewer than 25 percent of his team's games - in all games or in conference-only play).  Freshman Marquise Kennedy earned this year's award, first chosen in 1997.  He joins former Rambler Aundre Jackson (2017) as Loyola players tabbed as Sixth Man.  Kennedy, who attended Chicago (Ill.) Brother Rice High, is also a member of the league's five-player All-Freshman unit.  He's played in 31 games with just six starting assignments, and he averages 9.3 points per game.  The electric first-year player has added 38 steals and 41 assists in his first year.

In addition to the specialty awards, the conference announced its all-conference units (first-team, second-team, and third-team), all-newcomer team, all-freshman team, and all-defense team.  The all-bench and most-improved units have been selected by the league’s beat writers and will be announced Wednesday (March 4).  A complete listing of all-conference honorees and previous season specialty award winners is attached.