OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- Senior guard Michelle Young (Woodbury, Minn./Woodbury) is one of 30 national candidates for the Senior CLASS Award announced Friday afternoon. Young, who is the only Missouri Valley Conference women's basketball player up for the honor, is the third Bradley women's basketball to be a candidate for the Senior CLASS Award and first since Jenny Van Kirk in 2009-10.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
The list of 30 women's basketball candidates will be narrowed to 10 finalists later in the regular season and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one candidate who best exemplifies excellence in the four “Cs” of community, classroom, character and competition.
Bradley's leading scorer at 13.8 points per game this season, Young leads the Missouri Valley Conference in made free throws (63) and is fourth in the league in free throw percentage (79.7 percent). She is third in the MVC with a team-best 39 steals (2.4 per game) and is closing in on Bradley's career top 10 in both made free throws and steals.
An elementary education major with a 3.87 cumulative grade point average, Young tied the Bradley single-game scoring record with 38 points earlier this year at Columbia and also tied the school mark for field goals in a game (17). She broke into the top 20 in career scoring with 17 points against Missouri State Sunday and is 67 points from becoming the 17th player in program history with 1,000 career points.
Off the court, Young was a recipient of the MVC's Leadership and Service Award last February and has served on Bradley's Student-Athlete Advisory Council each of the past three years. In addition to her work on the Braves Council, she has been a part of Bradley's Ethnic Diversity Athletics Committee.
Young has earned a spot on the Bradley Athletic Director's Honor Roll all seven of her semesters and was a First-Team MVC Scholar-Athlete selection as a junior after earning second-team honors her sophomore year. She received the MVC Commissioner's Academic Excellence Award in 2013-14 and is a two-time selection as MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week.
Young and the Bradley women's basketball team open a three-game MVC road swing Sunday with a 2 p.m. game at Loyola.
