PEORIA, Ill. ? Senior guard Erika Nelson earned honorable mention Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete honors announced Tuesday by the league office. Nelson was one of 19 student-athletes recognized from among 37 nominations and was Bradley's lone representative on the Valley's scholar-athlete team.
A business management and administration major with a 3.17 cumulative grade point average, Nelson leads the Bradley women's basketball team in scoring at 13.6 points per game and is second in the MVC with 70 three pointers on the year. Her 70 trey's is the third-best season total in school history and is the most by a Bradley player since Michelle Nason made 87 three-pointers in 1994-95.
Nelson's 393 points on the season is the most by a Bradley player since Sara Bailey scored 487 points in 2001-02 and she enters this week's State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament with a chance to become the first player in program history to score 400 points as a senior since Heather Best in 1998-99.
She entered the year with a career scoring average of 4.9 points per game and made 24 three-pointers in her first three years. Nelson now ranks 10th in school history with 94 career three-pointers and also ranks among Bradley's career top 10 in three-point field goal percentage (.382) and free throw percentage (.773).
The criteria for the scholar-athlete team balloting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, have played at least 75 percent of a team's games, and must carry at least a 3.00 GPA (on a 4.0 scale).
Student-athletes must also have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution (true and redshirt freshmen are not eligible) and must have completed at least one full academic year at the institution.
Bradley (11-18 overall, 7-11 MVC) finished seventh in the regular-season Valley race and will face #10 seed Missouri State Thursday at 8:35 p.m. in the first round of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa.
