ST. LOUIS – Illinois State’s Mary Crompton has been named the State Farm Scholar-Athlete of the Year and headlines a group of six of the league’s top players named to the 2022 Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete First Team, as voted by the conference’s women’s basketball contacts. Crompton, a first-time recipient, is the first Redbird student-athlete to earn the State Farm Scholar-Athlete of the Year honor in women’s basketball.  In all, 16 players were honored on the scholar-athlete teams.

With a 4.00 grade point average pursuing a Master’s Degree in Biological Sciences, Crompton is a first-time selection on the MVC Scholar-Athlete first team. Crompton is joined on the first team by Loyola’s Allison Day, UNI’s Karli Rucker, Southern Illinois’ Abby Brockmeyer and Makenzie Silvey and Valparaiso’s Shay Frederick.

Second team selections include Drake’s Maddie Petersen, Evansville’s Abby Feit, Missouri State’s Mya Bhinhar and Brice Calip and Southern Illinois’ Gabby Walker.

The criteria for the scholar-athlete team balloting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for the Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, have played at least 75-percent of a team’s games, and must carry at least a 3.30 GPA (on a 4.0 scale). 
    
Student-athletes must also have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution (true and redshirt freshmen are not eligible) and must have completed at least one full academic year at the institution.

A total of 33 Valley student-athletes met the nomination criteria for scholar-athlete honors in 2022.