Trends Continue

Rhymes Heating & Cooling Hot Players of the Week

(St. Louis, MO) – Keandre Cook and Josiah Wallace are showing that interesting trends continue in the Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley Conferences. This week’s ‘Rhymes Heating & Cooling Hot Players of the Week’ are doing special things.

Missouri Valley Conference

Sweeping the Missouri Valley’s two weekly awards used to be nearly impossible, but not this year. Earning both awards had only happened 16 times in league history before this season.

Missouri State’s Keandre Cook became the third straight Valley player to achieve that status and the fourth this season. Drake’s Nick Norton earned the awards in December while Tulio Da Silva (Missouri State) and Drake’s Brady Ellingson pulled it off the last two weeks.

Cook helped the Bears to two lop-sided victories scoring 37 points and grabbing 18 rebounds in the two wins. The 6’5 junior earned both the ‘Player of the Week’ and the ‘Newcomer of the Week’ awards while MSU evened its league record at 4-and-4.

Ohio Valley Conference

Trends continue in the OVC where two players earned their second weekly award and one player picked up his third.

Belmont’s Kevin McClain earned his second ‘Player of the Week’ award sparking the Bruins to a pair of wins by scoring 39 points including a game-high 23 in a road win at Murray State. In Belmont’s road victory at Austin Peay the 6’3 senior hit the ‘go-ahead’ basket in a wild win at Austin Peay.

Josiah Wallace is a three-time winner of the ‘Newcomer of the Week’ honor. The Eastern Illinois sophomore scored 38 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Panthers split a pair of games. Wallace scored the final eight points in a win at UT Martin, including the game winning points.

Tennessee Tech’s Jr Clay pulled in his second ‘Freshman of the Week’ award. The 6’ guard scored 48 points in two Golden Eagle games. He added 13 assists and 12 rebounds. His 17.2 conference play scoring average leads all OVC freshmen.