ST. LOUIS -- Another day, another honor from the Missouri Valley Conference as sophomore Tyreke Key earned a spot on the MVC Scholar-Athlete Second Team as announced today by the league office. The MVC Scholar-Athlete Team is voted on by the league's 10 communications directors.

Key, who maintains a 3.20 GPA in Recreation and Sports Management, earlier this week was named to the All-MVC Second Team after earning MVC All-Freshman plaudits one year ago. On Wednesday he was named the MVC's Most Improved Player. Key became just the fourth-ever Sycamore to lead the MVC in overall scoring averaging 17.3 points per game and tallying 518 points. He joins Larry Bird, John Sherman Williams and David Moss as the only four in the history of the program to lead the Valley in scoring. His 44.3 percent mark from 3-point range ranked fourth in the league and his 34.2 minutes played was tops in the conference. 

In MVC only games, Key averaged 17.5 points per game which was third-best while his 79.6 percent mark from the free throw line was 10th. He played 34.6 minutes per game which was third-most in the league. He scored a career-high 32 points in the road overtime victory over Valparaiso and hit four 3-pointers in the dominating home win on February 20 against Illinois State. Key recorded 26 double digit scoring games this year and went over the 20-point mark 10 times and the 30-point standard once.

Key was joined on the MVC Scholar-Athlete Second Team by Aaron Cook (Southern Illinois), Nate Kennell (Bradley), Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye (Bradley), Derrik Smits (Valparaiso) and Luuk van Bree (Bradley). Drake's Nick McGlynn was named the MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

The criteria for the Missouri Valley Conference's Scholar-Athlete Team voting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves with at least a 3.20 cumulative grade-point average (4.0 scale). Nominees in grad school must have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 or better both as an undergrad AND in graduate school. Nominees must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at an institution and must have completed at least one calendar year at the institution. True freshmen, red-shirt freshmen and ineligible athletic transfers are not eligible. Graduate students who are competing at a different institution than the one from which they earned their undergraduate degree are eligible even if they are in their first semester at the graduate institution. A nominee must have played in 50 percent of his team's games.

Indiana State has earned the No. 8 seed at Arch Madness this week and will take on Valparaiso at 7:08 p.m. (ET) tonight from the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. The game will air live on the MVC TV Network (Fox Sports Indiana, NBC Sports Chicago, ESPN+ and Fox Sports Go). A pre-game reception is scheduled for 4 p.m. (Central) at the Hilton Downtown on Olive Street prior to the game.