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ST. LOUIS – Three members of the Southern Illinois women’s basketball team were recognized on Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete Teams, the conference announced Tuesday. Makenzie Silvey was named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team while both Abby Brockmeyer and Nicole Martin earned Scholar-Athlete Honorable Mention honors.
Southern’s three total honorees are tied with Northern Iowa for the most of any Valley school and all three Salukis earned the honor for the second-straight season. SIU has had at least one MVC Scholar-Athlete honoree in each of head coach Cindy Stein‘s seven seasons as head coach and have had 15 earn MVC Scholar-Athlete honors during her tenure. It marks the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Salukis have placed three on MVC Scholar-Athlete teams.
The criteria for the scholar-athlete team balloting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for 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 3.20 GPA (on a 4.0 scale).
Silvey earned her second career Scholar-Athlete honor after posting a 3.85 cumulative GPA while majoring in accounting. The shooting guard from Edwardsville, Ill. has started all 29 games for SIU and is averaging 14.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals in 31 minutes per game. She has reached double figures in 24 games this season, including eight games with 20-plus points. Silvey finished the regular season ranked in the top-15 of the MVC in six statistical categories, including fifth in three-pointers made per game (2.1), seventh in scoring (14.8), eighth in minutes played per game (30.9), 13th in steals (1.5), and 14th in three-point field goal percentage (34.5%). Earlier this season, Silvey became the 27th player in program history to score 1,000 career points.
Brockmeyer earned her second-straight Scholar-Athlete team nod after posting a 3.89 GPA as an accounting major. The Raymond, Ill. native has started all 29 games for SIU this season and is averaging 10.0 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 26.4 minutes per game. She has scored in double figures in 14 games this season, which includes five double-doubles. She finished the regular season ranked in the top-15 of the MVC in six statistical categories including second in offensive rebounds per game (2.8), sixth in rebounds per game (7.6), eighth in field goal percentage (50%), ninth in defensive rebounds per game (4.8), tied for 11th in blocked shots (.7) and tied for 13th in steals (1.5). She is 81 points shy of becoming the 28th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points.
Martin also earned her second-straight MVC Scholar-Athlete honor. She holds a 3.41 GPA as an exercise science major. One of just eight players in program history to score over 1,400 points in their career, Martin has started 28 games and is averaging 12.7 points and 5.4 rebounds in 23.5 minutes per game. She has scored in double figures in 21 games this season, including three 20-plus point games. The Jefferson City, Mo. native finished the regular season ranked in the top-15 of the MVC in five statistical categories including seventh in offensive rebounds (2.0), 10th in field goal percentage (48.8%), 11th in scoring (12.7), tied for 14th in blocks per game (.6) and tied for 15th in rebounds per game (5.4). Martin will end her Saluki career ranked in the top-10 in program history for both career points and career rebounds.
SIU is back in action on Thursday, March 12 at 7 p.m. against the Evansville Purple Aces. Tickets to “Hoops in the Heartland” are available at mvcquadcities.com.
Press release first featured on siusalukis.com