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.
