ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Valley Conference award results are in, and two UNI Panthers are taking home some hardware.
Sophomore AJ Green was named the MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year. Green was the Valley's leading scorer, made the most three-pointers and had the top free throw percentage in the conference. On top of that, he finished in the top-10 across the conference in assists, three-point percentage and total minutes played.
The Cedar Falls High School product has been a starter in each of his first two seasons, and has improved in almost every major statistical category across those two years. His average points per game jumped by 4.7, he brought his turnovers down by five and improved his efficiency from three by almost five percent.
Green becomes the second player from an Iowa university to be named Player of the Year in their respective conferences this week.
Senior Isaiah Brown was also named MVC Defensive Player of the year.
Named Offensive Player of the Year in his district at Flower Mound High School in Texas, Brown has developed his defensive game a lot in his college years. He made his way into the Panthers' starting lineup as a sophomore and was named to the MVC All-Defensive team as a junior.
UNI goes into the Arch Madness tournament in St. Louis with the number one seed. ESPN projects the Panthers to enter the NCAA tournament as a 10 seed.
