UE Seniors Earn Prestigious National Recognition
 University of Evansville seniors Egidijus Mockevicius and D.J. Balentine have been recognized for their efforts this season as Mockevicius has been named a candidate for the Senior CLASS Award while Balentine was named a player to watch by Sports Illustrated.
Sixty NCAA® men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes who excel both on and off the court were selected as candidates for the 2015-16 Senior CLASS Award® in collegiate basketball. To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
Egidijus Mockevicius was one of 30 men’s players selected to be on the list. The senior remains atop the national rebounding list with 14.6 per game. He has hauled in 20 boards in each of the last two games and four times overall this season. Each of the 30 candidate classes will be narrowed to 10 finalists in February, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one male candidate and one female candidate who best exemplify excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character and competition.
D.J. Balentine, who was named the #2 scorer in the NCAA by Sports Illustrated before the season, was named a Player to Watch on Tuesday.  SI.com gave him credit for his great all-around talent as he began the week averaging 21.2 points per game to go along with 4.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds.
He has finished all 20 games this season with at least 14 points with his season high of 32 coming in a road win at Murray State. Balentine remains the top scorer in the Missouri Valley Conference and looks for his third berth on the All-Conference First Team.
