Mid-Major All-American Team | Mid-Major Defensive All-American Team | Mid-Major Freshman All-American TeamAustin Peay's Drake Reed, Morehead State's Kenneth Faried and Murray State's Ivan Aska have been honored for their outstanding basketball seasons by CollegeInsider.com. Reed was selected a Mid-Major All-American, Faried was tabbed to the Mid-Major Defensive All-American Team and Aska a Mid-Major Freshman All-American.
All of the awards were selected by a panel of NCAA D-I coaches, National Basketball Association scouts, and CollegeInsider.com staff.
Reed, one of 21 players selected to the team, finished his senior season averaging a career-best 21.9 ppg and 7.5 rpg in leading the Govs to the Ohio Valley Conference tourney championship game and a berth in the inaugural CollegeInsider.com Post-Season Tournament.
Along the way Reed earned his third straight first-team All-OVC selection. As a senior, Reed has fashioned seven 30-point outings along with eight double doubles. He finished third among the nation’s forwards in scoring. Reed was particularly spectacular in February in leading the Govs to the OVC tourney’s No. 2 seed. He reached 30 or more points in five of eight contests. During the month, Reed averaged 29.3 ppg, shooting 58.9 percent (86 of 146) from the floor and 80.3 percent (53 of 66) from the free-throw line. He averaged 8.9 rpg in the month. As a result, Reed became the first Austin Peay player in history to score more than 1,900 points and grab at least 750 rebounds. In fact, Reed finished his career just nine points shy of 2,000.
Faried was one of 11 honorable mention selections to the Mid-Major All-American Team and one of 21 players selected to the Mid-Major Defensive All-American Team. Faried, who was also named the OVC Defensive Player of the Year, led the league in rebounding with 13.0 caroms a contest in 2008-09. That figure ranked him third nationally. His 24 double-doubles also ranked among the nation's leaders in 2008-09. Faried also ranked among the league leaders in steals and field goal percentage.
His performance helped Morehead State to its first OVC Tournament Championship in 25 years and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles topped Alabama State in the Opening Round game, marking the OVC's first NCAA Tournament victory since 1989.
Aska, one of 21 players selected to the All-Freshman squad, had an outstanding freshman season that led to being named the Ohio Valley Conference Freshman of the Year. He was MSU’s third-leading scorer at 10.3 points per game and first in rebounding with 5.8 per game.
Aska earned OVC Freshman of the Week honors three times. In just his third college game Nov. 22, he scored 20 points and grabbed six rebounds in MSU’s win over WKU. Aska had 16 games of double-figure scoring in his first season and had two games of double-figure rebounding including 11 against UTM in the same Feb. 23 game when he scored his season-high of 23 points. He was second on the team with 125 field goals and managed a .527 clip in field goal percentage.