Four Owls Basketball players earn 2023-24 Academic All-District® honors
Mississippi University for Women’s basketball has had four players – three women’s and one men’s team member – selected to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) 2023-24 Academic All-District® team. Honored from the Owls’ women’s basketball team were Conley Langford (Calhoun City, Mississippi), Jas Patrick (Palm Beach Gardens, Florida), and Claire Leak (Lamar, Mississippi), while The W men’s basketball was represented by Josh Dukes (Booneville, Mississippi).
Outstanding student-athletes are nominated for CSC Academic All-District® recognition by current dues-paying members and must meet high academic and athletic standards.
“I am very proud of all four of our basketball players to have earned this tremendous honor,” Director of Athletics Buddy Foster said. “Especially as an NCAA Division III member, we put significant importance on the balance between academics, athletics and civic engagement. These four individuals are emblematic of what we desire of all of our Owls team members; they truly represent the ‘student’ in the term student-athlete.”
Langford, a junior guard and biology major at The W, was a first-team All-St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) honoree in The W’s inaugural season in both the conference, as well as NCAA Division III. Langford led the team – as well as ranking among the SLIAC leaders – in scoring (19.3 p.p.g.), rebounds (9.3 r.p.g.), and free throw shooting at nearly 83 % (132-160), setting numerous season and career records along the way in 2023-24. Going back to the 2022-23 season, Langford has an ongoing streak of 30 consecutive games with double-digit scoring.
Langford was the lone W student-athlete selected to advance to the national ballot for Academic All-America recognition. Only a select group of student-athletes advance from Academic All-District submission status to the Academic All-America ballot, where CSC members then vote for Academic All-America® teams within their division.
Patrick, a sophomore accounting major, was the Owls’ point guard and averaged 3.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game. Patrick also started all 22 games for The W.
Leak, a junior transfer from Northwest Mississippi Community College and a speech-language pathology major, averaged 12.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game for her 22 starts. She proved to be the squad’s most effective weapon beyond the arc, averaging 2.3 three-point baskets made per game, while shooting a deft 46% from long distance (which ranked No. 3 in all of NCAA Division III for the year).
For the men’s basketball team Dukes, a sophomore business management major, played in 24 of the team’s 25 games, making 10 starts. Dukes averaged 7.6 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, shooting nearly 53% from the floor. He was also named to the SLIAC’s All-Sportsmanship team in 2023-24.
To be eligible for CSC Academic All-District® recognition, student-athletes must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically, must be enrolled at their institution at the time of nomination either as undergraduates or graduate students and only the school at which an athlete competed in the current academic year can nominate that player.
An undergraduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) to be nominated. On the court, nominees must compete in 90% of their team’s games played or must have started in at least 66 percent of the games played.