INDIANAPOLIS – University of Southern Indiana graduate men’s basketball player Alex Stein and Lewis University senior women’s basketball player Jessica Kelliher have each earned the Great Lakes Valley Conference Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the league’s male and female athlete of the year, the Conference office announced Thursday.
The awards are bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete that display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character, and leadership. It is named in honor of former GLVC Commissioner, as well as, coach and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's College.
Stein and Kelliher will be formally recognized Tuesday, May 21, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.
Stein is the second Screaming Eagles men’s basketball player and fourth Southern Indiana student-athlete to claim the GLVC’s highest student-athlete honor. The first for USI men’s basketball was Craig Martin in 1993-94, while men’s soccer and baseball players, Duncan Bray and Matt Keener, were respectively named back-to-back Paragon winners in 2003-04 and 2004-05. His accolades during a prestigious four-year career are numerous, both academically and athletically. Stein proved his abilities on the court early on, winning GLVC Men’s Basketball Freshman of the Year after starting all 30 games and averaging 14.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. He followed in his sophomore season with a first-team All-GLVC accolade thanks to an improved scoring average of 17.3 points to go with 3.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. The Evansville, Ind., native also earned recognition as a GLVC Player of the Week and Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic All-Tournament. In his third season during the 2017-18 year, Stein was named a Division II Bulletin honorable mention All-American, NABC second-team All-Midwest, and first-team All-GLVC. All of that earned after a team-high 17.5 points per game while posting 3.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 31 games, setting a USI career record with 3897 free throws made as well as a single-season free throw percentage of 93.5 (130-139) helped along by a new USI mark of 54 consecutive free throws made while tying a USI record with a 14-of-14 effort at the foul line. The guard also became the 20th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points. His fourth and final campaign this past year was certainly the most impressive, as he picked up Division II Bulletin and Street & Smith’s College Basketball preseason honorable mention All-America, as well as postseason Division II Bulletin honorable mention All-America, All-GLVC first-team, NABC first-team All-Midwest District, D2CCA first-team All-Midwest Region, and D2CCA honorable mention All-America. He was also a four-time All-Tournament Team member at the Prairie Stars Tipoff Classic, GLVC Championship, NCAA Midwest Regional, and NCAA D-II Elite Eight, while being named the Most Outstanding Player at the Regional. His team earned a berth in the GLVC postseason event all four years of his tenure and qualified for the D-II NCAA Tournament twice (2016-17 and 2018-19), including winning this season’s Midwest Regional Championship and advancing to the Final Four. Statistically, as a senior, Stein averaged 20.9 points and set USI career (2,219) and season (732) scoring marks, a single-season made free throws record (203), and finished as the program’s all-time leader in career free throws made (600) while registering a career-high 48 points against Lake Superior State Nov. 23. Moreover, his 386 career assists ranks fourth all-time at USI, while his 165 three-point field goals made ranks seventh in the annals.
The management major, that accumulated a four-year 3.445 GPA, earned academic accolades to rival his prowess on the court, including two Academic All-GLVC honors in 2018 and 2019, two CoSIDA Academic All-District IV First Team in 2017 and 2018, and 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-District First Team and All-America Third Team. The Academic All-America merit was the first of its kind for the program. He also graduated a semester early in the fall of 2018 and began work in 2019 with the USI MBA program.
In addition to his athletic and academic endeavors, Stein has served his community with distinction, honor, and integrity in many different ways. He was part of the Christian Fellowship Church and Campus Discipleship Outreach since 2015, participating in Bible studies, seminars, and a cross-cultural project in South Africa. In addition, he was an Academic Skills Tutor since 2016, teaching economics and computer information systems, as well as, study skills and time management. During the same time period, Stein served as a Peer Mentor, advising USI students on time management and communications skills and also helping student-athletes adjust to college life. Since 2017, he was a Teachers Assistant, aiding professors in discussion boards and grading undergraduate student assignments, while spending the past year as an intern with Old National Bank, reviewing and analyzing financial statements and meeting with the leadership team and investors. Furthermore, The USI athletics department voted for him to win the Screaming Eagle Pride Award that’s presented to the student-athlete who most exemplified what USI athletics is all about in doing the right things in class, community, and field of play. He also was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Business department.
Kelliher will go down as one of the best women’s basketball players in GLVC history and is the third Flyer to earn the league’s most prestigious honor for a student-athlete. The first was Mary Moskal in 2006-07, while Jamie Johnson was the honoree in 2016-17, both of whom were also standouts on the court. The coveted distinction comes at the conclusion of the talented senior’s career on the hardwood where she earned multiple accolades, both athletically and academically. Her basketball career began with a GLVC Freshman of the Year nod and followed with three-straight GLVC Player of the Year awards, becoming just the second GLVC women’s basketball player to achieve that feat. In addition to her top honor as a newcomer, she was also a D2CCA All-Region selection, Division II Bulletin All-Freshman Team member, a two-time GLVC Player of the Week, and the first freshman since 1999 to be named First Team All-GLVC. In GLVC games, Kelliher averaged 18.8 points per game and 6.1 rebounds while shooting 60.2 percent, which was first in the loop. Her sophomore campaign saw recognition as a four-time GLVC Player of the Week, First Team All-GLVC, D2CCA First Team All-Midwest Region, DII Bulletin Third Team All-American, D2CCA and WBCA Honorable Mention All-American, and GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the sport. She improved her scoring average that season at 21.2 points per game with 7.2 rebounds and a 65.5 field-goal percentage, which was first in both the GLVC and NCAA Division II. She followed in her junior year as a four-time GLVC Player of the Week, an All-GLVC first-team pick, a D2CCA All-Midwest Region first-team honoree, a DII Bulletin Third Team All-American, a D2CCA and WBCA Honorable Mention All-American, and back-to-back GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. In that season, Kelliher led the league and D-II in overall scoring with a 24.7 points-per-game average as well as field goals made (313) and was second in field-goal percentage (66.9), adding a 25.2 scoring average in GLVC-only contests with 9.2 rebounds and a 69.4 field-goal percentage with all three leading the Conference. In her swan song, the 6-foot forward was seven times selected as GLVC Player of the Week – a Conference record – for a league-record 20 career weekly honors. She registered distinction as All-GLVC for the fourth season, D2CCA All-Midwest Region first-team, First Team All-American by the D2CCA, WBCA, and DII Bulletin, and was named the D2CCA Ron Lenz National Player of the Year. All of that after becoming the Lewis and GLVC all-time leading scorer with 2,764 points, which was third among all active players at all three divisions, to help her finish fifth in D-II for points scored and second in field goals made (1,093). She led the GLVC in scoring (24.4) and was second in rebounding (9.4); her field goal percentage (65.1) was tops in league games as were her 175 field goals made; she led D-II in field-goal percentage (65.9) and was second in D-II in field goals made (307). Her scoring average of 21.8 points per game is best all-time in Lewis history and is second among active D-II players. Kelliher became the 33rd player in D-II history with more than 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, and her 572 free throws made were third most among active D-II players while her 799 free throw attempts were most among active D-II players. All of her individual accomplishments helped the team compile an overall record of 102-25 and a 62-10 league mark during her tenure while the Flyers squads reached both the GLVC and NCAA Tournaments all four years.
As a student, the Waukesha, Wis., native received Academic All-GLVC honors her first three years and is on track to be named as such for the fourth time. In addition, she is a two-time GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for women’s basketball and will be eligible to earn recognition for the third time in a row when the merit is voted upon next month. She also earned a CoSIDA Academic All-America first-team selection in 2018 and was named the 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for D-II women’s basketball. She picked up seven semesters worth of Deans List recognition and was a four-time recipient of Lewis’ Brother David Delahanty Award for academic excellence and won the 2019 Senior Departmental Award for Organization Communication, as she amassed a 3.84 cumulative GPA, which included three semesters of perfect 4.0 marks. Two of those unblemished semesters came during the 2016-17 academic year, which earned her Brother James Gaffney Distinguished Scholar praise. She was also a member of the Delta Epsilon Sigma National Catholic Honor Society.
Kelliher spent three years as a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at Lewis and also participated in various community engagement activities. Due to her involvement, she received the Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award from the Lincoln Academy of Illinois, which recognizes one outstanding senior from each of the four-year degree-granting institutions of higher learning in Illinois as Student Laureates, honored for their leadership and service in the pursuit of the betterment of humanity and for overall excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities.