Official 2015-16 Capital One Academic All-America Release
AUSTIN, TEXAS – Four Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) basketball student-athletes were named to the 2015-16 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division II Men's and Women's Basketball Teams, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Hillsdale senior forward Kyle Cooper has been tabbed the Academic All-America® of the Year award winner for men's basketball. A senior accounting major with a 3.98 G.P.A., Cooper is making his second-straight appearance on the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division II Men's Basketball first team. The native of Northville, Michigan, was named the 2015-16 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Preseason Men's Basketball Player of the Year and has been selected the GLIAC Men's Basketball Player of the Week five times this season.
Cooper ranks ninth in the country in double-doubles this season, averaging 22.8 points per game and 9.8 rebounds per contest. A 2015 GLIAC Commissioner's Award winner, Cooper currently ranks in the top 10 in 14 different GLIAC statistical categories. He ranks first in the GLIAC in scoring and three-point shooting percentage (45.3 percent), second in rebounding and 10th in field goal shooting percentage (56.1 percent).
Ashland sophomore Andi Daugherty's list of sophomore-season honors also includes five Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference South Division Player of the Week awards, CoSIDA Academic All-District and U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) Division II Women's Basketball Player of the Week on Jan. 26. She also was the team's nominee for the 2016 Allstate Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Good Works Team.
Through the GLIAC Tournament quarterfinals, Daugherty is averaging 15.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, while shooting 52.5 percent from the field and 77.2 percent from the free-throw line. A Finance major, Daugherty also sports a 3.93 cumulative grade-point average.
Saginaw Valley's junior forward Emily Wendling, an Occupational Therapy major from Flushing, Michigan, carries a 3.88 cumulative GPA in the classroom on her way to earning second team honors. She is equally impressive on the basketball court, where she currently averages 18.6 points per game and 9.4 rebounds per contest. Emily leads the GLIAC with the scoring average and ranks fourth in rebounding. Wendling has an 85.3 free throw percentage this year as well and has averaged a block every game. She became a member of the SVSU women's basketball 1,000-point club earlier this season as well. Her free throw percentage has helped the Cards rank third currently nationally with a 78.6 percent average from the charity stripe.
Emily has led the Lady Cardinals to a share of the programs' first-ever GLIAC North Division Championship and best season since the 1997-98 campaign. The team has reached the 20-victory mark for the first time since that same season and will enter the 2016 GLIAC Tournament Tuesday (Mar. 1) as the no. 2 overall seed. Wendling was named the GLIAC North Division Player of the Week five times in 2015-16 and was selected as the USBWA National Player of the Week once, as well as being named the February Women's Division II Bulletin Player of the Month.
Ohio Dominican senior Melissa Scherpenberg is the first women's basketball student-athlete in ODU's Division II era to earn Academic All-American honors. Off the court, she carries a 3.88 GPA and is an Early Childhood Education major. She has been named to a trio of GLIAC Academic Excellence teams and has helped the Panthers have the top GPA in the nation in two of the last three years.
On the court, Scherpenberg played a major role in helping the team compile a 20-9 record this season. She is averaging 13.4 points on 52.3 percent shooting and leads the conference with 11.1 rebounds per game. She has totaled 18 double-doubles this season, including each of the last three games where she is averaging 14.3 rebounds per game.
