Weekly Stars

(St. Louis, MO) – The weekly superlatives have been handed out by the Ohio Valley and Missouri Valley Conferences.  Career best performances abounded in both Valleys and we had some of our first repeat award winners of the season.

Ohio Valley Conference

Tennessee State split a pair of games and junior Christian Mekowulu was spectacular. The Nigeria native totaled 42 points and grabbed 33 rebounds in the two games. His career high 26 points helped push the Tigers into overtime against Lipscomb. The OVC’s ‘Player of the Week‘ shot better than 68% from the field and blocked seven shots.

Eastern Illinois’ Jajuan Starks is emerging as an OVC star. Despite losing a pair of road games, the Panther wing averaged 15.5 points and 6.5 rebounds. Starks was deadly from the charity stripe, knocking in ten of 11 attempts. The Wabash Valley transfer is this week’s ‘Newcomer of the Week‘ and his season average of 15 points-per-game is the OVC’s eleventh best average.

Terry Taylor is the first repeat winner of an OVC weekly award. The Austin Peay freshman averaged a double-double (10 ppg & 12 rpg) as the Governors split their two games. Taylor is the OVC’s ‘Freshman of the Week‘ for the second time in three weeks. Last week, teammate Dayton Gumm brought the award to Clarksville.

Missouri Valley Conference

Northern Iowa’s Bennett Koch was brilliant in the Panthers’ win over UNLV. The 6’10 senior scored a career high 30 points, including a free throw that sent the game into overtime and two more to ice the game late in the extra session. Koch became the third Koch brother to record a 30 point scoring performance for UNI and is this week’s ‘Player of the Week‘. He is the fourth player in as many weeks to win the award.

The first repeat winner in the MVC is ‘Newcomer of the Week‘ Kavion Pippen. The Southern Illinois junior averaged 17.5 points in two Saluki victories. His 22 point effort against San Jose State came on a nine-of-ten shooting performance. Pippen, Chicago Bulls great Scottie Pippen’s nephew, also won the ‘Newcomer‘ award the first week of the season.