Missouri State junior Alize Johnson (F, Williamsport, Pa.) has been named Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball Newcomer of the Year, the league announced Tuesday afternoon.
Johnson was named to the All-MVC first team and the MVC All-Newcomer Team earlier in the day. He is a two-time Valley Player of the Week and six-time Valley Newcomer of the Week.
The MVC began its Newcomer of the Year program in 1969, and Johnson joins Danny Moore (1997), Mike Wallace (2001), Spencer Laurie (2007), Adam Leonard (2010) and Dequon Miller (2016) as the sixth MSU player to earn the honor and second in as many years.
He led the conference in rebounding at 10.5 per game, which ranks 11th nationally. He also leads MSU in scoring at 14.5 points per game while producing 16 double-doubles – the 13th-most in the nation — with 20 double-figure rebounding games. He enters the postseason with the second-highest season rebounding total of Missouri State’s Division I era (327) while converting 48.8 percent of his field goals and 39 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Missouri State is the No. 6 seed for Arch Madness and will take on No. 3 seed Northern Iowa on Friday at 8:35 p.m. The game will air live on FOX Sports Midwest and the MVC Television Network.
