MVC/OVC Fifth Week Award Winners

Fifth MVC Player of the Week in Five Weeks

(St. Louis, MO) – As students head to finals and conference action is just around the corner our MVC/OVC fifth week award winners are spread across six teams. The five weeks have produced five different Missouri Valley Conference ‘Player of the Week’ winners and four in the Ohio Valley Conference.

One constant has been the ‘Freshman of the Week’ award winner in the OVC.

Fifth Week Award Winners

Evansville’s Connor Turnbull set a Purple Aces’ single game record. The 6’10 senior blocked nine shots against Western Kentucky eclipsing the mark of Egidijus Mockevicius and two others. He swatted five away against Butler for a 14-block week!

The Valley’s ‘Player of the Week’ also scored forty points and collected 18 rebounds during UE’s two games. He’s averaging 2.89 blocks per game.

Southern Illinois Edwardsville’s Ring Malith recorded a career-high 31 points in one game and added 20 more in the other. The OVC’s fourth leading scorer (16.6 ppg) is this week’s ‘Player of the Week’. During that 31-point outburst he also collected ten rebounds for his seventh career, double-double.

Fifth New Newcomer For Each League

Valparaiso nearly defeated Marquette and then defeated Calumet College and Texas A&M Corpus Christi transfer Owen Dease scored 17 points in each game. Valpo lost an overtime game to the Golden Eagles and defeated CCSJ by forty points. The Valley’s ‘Newcomer of the Week’ becomes the fifth different MVC player to claim this weekly honor. Beacon freshman Rakim Chaney has grabbed two ‘Freshman of the Week’ honors.

Tennessee Tech split its two games and forward Dani Pounds played a leading role during those two games. The Old Dominion transfer averaged twenty points and seven rebounds while the Golden Eagles dropped a narrow decision to Lipscomb and defeated West Georgia. Pounds (12.0 ppg) is the OVC’s ‘Newcomer of the Week’ and Tennessee Tech’s first weekly award winner.

Shining Rookies

Mason Klabo is the second Illinois State Redbird to claim an MVC ‘Freshman of the Week’ honor. The fifth week award winner joins teammate Ty’Reek Coleman with that notoriety. He was the top scoring Redbird this past week and the leader among all Valley first-year players. He tallied 17 points during the Redbirds’ win over Eastern Kentucky and 16 in Illinois State’s victory over Chicago State. The Redbirds have won seven straight games.

Stop me if you’ve read this before. Tennessee Martin freshman Matas Deniusas is the OVC ‘Freshman of the Week’. The fifth week award is his fifth straight. While the Skyhawks were winning a pair of games the Lithuania native tallied forty more points. He’s the OVC’s seventh leading scorer (14.7 ppg), just behind teammate Andrija Bukumirovic (15.3).

Editor: The Missouri Valley Conference’s Mike Kern tells us the Valley is now eighth among all NCAA conferences in the NET rankings. Belmont (51), Illinois State (87), Murray State (89) and Northern Iowa (97) all rank in the top 100.