ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis senior forward Brian Conklin has
been selected to the Capital One Academic All-America Division I men's
basketball second team by the College Sports Information Directors of America
(CoSIDA). He becomes the seventh Academic All-American in program history and
second under fifth-year head coach Rick
Majerus at SLU.
Conklin, a two-time Atlantic
10 Conference All-Academic selection, graduated cum laude with a bachelor's
degree in business administration in May 2011. He is enrolled in SLU's MBA
program, with an anticipated graduation in May 2012.
On the court, Conklin is
having his best season. He leads the Billikens (22-5, 10-3 A-10) with 13.9 ppg
and is second with 5.1 rpg. Earlier this season, Conklin became the 26th
Billiken to reach 1,000 points for his career.
At the ESPN 76 Classic in
Anaheim in November, Conklin led the Billikens to three wins and a subsequent
national ranking, the first time the Billikens have been ranked since the
1993-94 season. He was named tournament MVP and Atlantic 10 Conference Player
of the Week for his efforts.
Conklin has never missed a
game in his four-year career and will go down among the program's leaders in
games played and games started. Entering Saturday's game against Rhode Island,
he has 1,062 career points, which ranks 22nd on SLU's all-time list.
Conklin is the first men's
basketball Academic All-American at SLU since Kevin Lisch was named to the third team in 2008-09. Other SLU basketball
Academic All-Americans are Scott
Highmark (1993-94 and 1994-95), John
Kilo (1966-67), Gary Lamps
(1971-72), Ted Mimlitz (1985-86) and
Rich Niemann (1967-68).
Conklin is the sixth
Majerus-coached player to earn Academic All-America accolades. Michael Doleac, Drew Hansen and Hanno
Motolla were selected Academic All-Americans when Majerus coached at Utah. Marc Marotta garnered Academic
All-America plaudits at Marquette, and Lisch earned the honor at SLU. Majerus
is also proud to have coached three Rhodes Scholar candidates during his career
- Marotta, Hansen and Rich Hall from
Ball State.