HBU’s Ian DuBose Named Southland Men’s Basketball Student-Athlete of the Year

3/31/2020 11:00:00 AM

FRISCO, Texas – Houston Baptist’s Ian DuBose is the 2019-20 Southland Conference Men’s Basketball Student-Athlete of the Year, the league announced Tuesday along with its all-academic teams. Student-Athlete of the Year awards are presented by GEICO.

A two-time Academic All-Southland selection, DuBose touts a 3.84 GPA in kinesiology and is coming off an all-conference second team recognition. The league-leader in scoring in conference games, DuBose averaged 20 points per game while ranking fifth in assists (4.2), seventh in rebounds (7.6) and field-goal percentage (46.4), and ninth in free-throw percentage (80.0).

Abilene Christian is the only institution with multiple honorees, placing two on the top squad in sophomore Joe Pleasant and senior Payten Ricks, an automatic pick after earning first-team all-conference laurels. Lamar’s V.J. Holmes and Central Arkansas’ Hayden Koval rounded out the all-academic first team. Koval joins DuBose as the only repeat selections on this year’s team.

UIW’s Des Balentine, McNeese’s Roydell Brown, Southeastern Louisiana’s Pape Diop, Northwestern State’s C.J. Jones and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Elijah Scmidt made up the Academic All-Southland Second Team.

The Southland Conference awards committee, which consists of one administrator from each of the 13 member universities, voted for the Student-Athlete of the Year. Student-Athlete of the Year nominees shall have earned at least a 3.2 GPA on a 4.0 scale, and demonstrated athletics achievement for at least two years at the nominating institution.

CoSIDA Academic All-District/All-American selections and First Team All-Conference athletes who meet all-academic nomination criteria are automatically named First Team All-Academic.

2019-20 Southland Conference Men’s Basketball All-Academic Teams

First Team
Name	University	Class	Hometown	GPA	Major
Ian DuBose^{2^}	Houston Baptist	Jr.	Durham, N.C.	3.84	Kinesiology
V.J. Holmes	Lamar	Sr.	Jupiter, Fla.	3.00	Entrepreneurship, Gen. Business, Management
Hayden Koval²	Central Arkansas	Jr.	Prosper, Texas	3.85	Accounting
Joe Pleasant	Abilene Christian	So.	Overland Park, Kan.	3.29	Management
Payten Ricks¹	Abilene Christian	Sr.	Wichita, Kan.	3.00	Marketing

Second Team Name	University	Class	Hometown	GPA	Major
Des Balentine	UIW	Jr.	Kokomo, Ind.	3.31	General Studies
Roydell Brown	McNeese	Sr.	New Orleans, La.	3.05	General Studies
Pape Diop	Southeastern Louisiana	Jr.	Ziguinchor, Senegal	3.11	General Studies
C.J. Jones	Northwestern State	Jr.	Monroe, La.	3.32	Child/Family Studies
Elijah Schmidt	Texas A&M-Corpus Christi	Sr.	Spring, Texas	3.17	Environmental Science

^2019-20 Southland Men’s Basketball Student-Athlete of the Year
¹All-Conference First Team selection
²Two-time all-academic selection