AJ Green of the University of Northern Iowa Earns Enterprise Bank and Trust Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award
ST. LOUIS -- AJ Green of UNI highlights a list of 15 student-athletes honored as part of the 2020 MVC Scholar-Athlete Teams, announced today by the league office. Green, one of four MVC student-athletes to earn 2019-20 CoSIDA Academic All-District honors, is being recognized as the MVC Enterprise Bank and Trust Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Voting was conducted by league’s sports information directors.
2020 MVC Men's Basketball Scholar-Athlete Team (PDF)
Green has a 3.61 cumulative grade point average in Movement and Exercise Science. He has made the Dean’s list the past two semesters while being named to the Athletic Directors Honor Roll all three semesters. Earlier this week, Green was named the MVC Larry Bird Trophy winner, presented to the league’s most valuable player. 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.
Green is joined on the first-team unit by Barret Benson of Southern Illinois, Nate Kennell of Bradley, Cameron Krutwig of Loyola and Panther teammate Austin Phyfe. Benson, Green, Kennell and Krutwig were recipients of 2019-20 CoSIDA Academic all-district plaudits.
The criteria for the Missouri Valley Conference’s Scholar-Athlete Team voting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves with at least a 3.20 cumulative grade-point average (4.0 scale). Nominees in grad school must have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 or better both as an undergrad AND in graduate school. Nominees must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at an institution and must have completed at least one calendar year at the institution. True freshmen, red-shirt freshmen and ineligible athletic transfers are not eligible. Graduate students who are competing at a different institution than the one from which they earned their undergraduate degree are eligible even if they are in their first semester at the graduate institution. A nominee must have played in 50 percent of his team’s games.
