Tucker DeVries named MVC Player of the Year, Roman Penn honored on first team
Tucker DeVries has earned the Missouri Valley Conference’s Larry Bird Trophy, given to the league’s player of the year.
The Drake basketball starter is the fourth sophomore in conference history to win the award. He joins Creighton’s Doug McDermott (2012), Wichita State’s Fred VanVleet (2014) and UNI’s AJ Green (2020).
DeVries received 18 first place votes to become the first Bulldogs player to win the league’s top honor since Adam Emmenecker in 2008. He joins Jeff Halliburton (1971), Lewis Lloyd (1980, 1981), Curt Smith (1993) and Emmenecker, all Drake players who have won the award.
DeVries averaged 18.9 points and 5.6 rebounds per game in his second year of college basketball. He has started all but one of the Bulldogs’ games this season, helping Drake to a 24-7 record and the No. 2 seed at Arch Madness.
He missed one game – against Belmont on Jan. 29 – due to an infection in his arm.
DeVries was also named a member of the MVC’s All-Conference team. He is joined on the first team by graduate guard Roman Penn, who averaged 12.5 points and 4.7 rebounds. Drake’s all-time assists leader recorded 158 assists this season.
Garrett Sturtz joined his teammates on the All-Conference third team. Conor Enright was one of five players named to the All-Freshman team.
Northern Iowa's Bowen Born was a second-team selection. Teammate Michael Duax was selected to the All-Freshman team.
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Tucker DeVries earns MVC's Larry Bird Trophy for player of the year
