ST. LOUIS – Indiana State guards Kiley Bess and Ella Sawyer were named to the 2024 MVC Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete Teams, as announced Tuesday afternoon by the conference office.
 
Bess was one of six athletes in the conference named First Team MVC Scholar-Athlete, while Sawyer was a Second Team MVC Scholar-Athlete selection.
 
Bess, a senior guard from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, carries a 4.0 GPA as a pre-physical therapy major. She led the Sycamores with 11.1 points and 32.5 minutes per game this season, and was also among the top five on the team in rebounds (4.2), assists (1.9) and steals (1.6). Bess scored in double-figures 15 times this season, including a career-high 22-point game against Northern Kentucky. She also set single-game career highs in rebounds (10 vs. Evansville), assists (five at Northern Kentucky) and steals (six at Valparaiso) this season. Bess had 11 games with five or more rebounds, eight games with three or more assists and 13 games with two or more steals in the 2023-24 campaign. She recorded her first career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the Sycamores' home win against Evansville.
 
Sawyer, a fifth-year guard from Adelaide, Australia, carries a 3.982 GPA as an education major with a concentration in middle school math teaching. She led Indiana State with 3.3 assists per game and also was third on the team with 4.4 rebounds per game. Sawyer added 6.5 points, 1.5 steals and 0.4 blocks per game this season. She had nine games with double-digit scoring this season, including an ISU-high 15 at Murray State. Sawyer also had eight games with five or more rebounds, 18 games with three or more assists and 14 games with two or more steals. She recorded a pair of double-doubles this season, accomplishing the feat against both UIC (13 points, 12 rebounds) and Bradley (13 points, 11 rebounds). She also dished out a career-high 12 assists against Southern Illinois.
 
Bess is Indiana State's first First Team MVC Scholar-Athlete selection since the 2013-14 season, while Sawyer is the first Sycamore to be named Second Team MVC Scholar-Athlete since the 2016-17 season. Including Bess and Sawyer, Indiana State has had 19 First Team MVC Scholar-Athlete selections, 11 Second Team MVC Scholar-Athlete selections and eight Honorable Mention MVC Scholar-Athlete selections in program history.
 
The MVC Scholar-Athlete teams consisted of 22 student-athletes and were selected by the 12 conference women's basketball contacts. The criteria for the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team voting parallels the CSC (College Sports Communicators) standards for Academic All-America nominations. Student-athletes must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically and must be enrolled at their institution at the time of nomination either as undergraduates or graduate students. The 12-month residency requirement for undergraduate transfers is no longer required. An undergraduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale), and a graduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) as both an undergraduate and a grad student unless they are in their first semester as a graduate student and don't have an established graduate GPA.
 
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