The league’s Larry Bird Player of the Year Cameron Krutwig of Loyola Chicago highlights a list of 15 student-athletes honored as part of the 2021 MVC Scholar-Athlete Teams, announced today by the league office.  Voting was conducted by league’s sports information directors. 

One of the all-time greats to wear a Loyola uniform and play in the Missouri Valley Conference, Krutwig, who is majoring in Entrepreneurship with a cumulative GPA of 3.44, is one of only four players in league history to have 1,500 career points, 800 career rebounds and 300 career assists, joining Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird and Hersey Hawkins.  Additionally, he’s the only player in Loyola history to rank in the school’s top 10 in points, rebounds and assists.  Along with classmate Lucas Williamson, is the winningest player in Loyola history over a four-year career with 94 wins.  Krutwig was named to the Naismith Trophy Midseason Watch List and was a CoSIDA First Team Academic All-District 5 honoree in 2019-20.  He’s now a three–time MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team selection.

Krutwig is joined on the first-team unit by Trent Brown of Southern Illinois; teammate Tate Hall of Loyola; Ben Krikke of Valparaiso; Austin Phyfe of UNI; and Garrett Sturtz of Drake.

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.

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