UNI's AJ Green, Drake's Tucker DeVries headline Missouri Valley Conference player awards
Alyssa Hertel
The Missouri Valley Conference today announced its all-conference teams and individual player awards, highlighted by AJ Green, Tucker DeVries and Bowen Born for UNI and Drake men’s basketball.
Panthers junior guard AJ Green was named the Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year. It is Green’s second time winning the award after winning in 2020 as well. He is the 10th player in conference history to earn the Larry Bird Trophy multiple times. Green finished the regular season with 516 points, averaging 19.1 per game.
Drake’s forward Tucker DeVries won Freshman of the Year. DeVries stood out over all other freshmen in the MVC, averaging 13.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. He added 23 blocks and 30 steals in his first season of college basketball, while starting all but the first seven games for the Bulldogs.
UNI’s Bowen Born won the MVC’s Sixth Man of the Year. He was named MVC Freshman of the Year last season after starting all 25 games for the Panthers but struggled with injuries at the start of the 2021-22 season. He finished the regular season averaging 7.6 points per game, while recording double-digit minutes in every game.
Green is the only in-state player named to the All-MVC first team. For the Panthers, Noah Carter was named to the second team and Drake's Garrett Sturtz was named to the second team as well.
DeVries also headlined the all-newcomer and all-freshman teams. Roman Penn was named to third team. D.J. Wilkins was the only in-state player to make the all-defensive Team.
Alyssa Hertel is a college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.