St. LOUIS -- Missouri State's Danielle Gitzen and Alexa Willard were recognized Tuesday (March 12) for their work in the classroom, with Gitzen landing one of five spots on the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete First Team, and Willard being selected to the second team after a vote of the league's sports information directors.

Gitzen, a senior guard from Victoria, Minn., leads the Lady Bears in scoring (12.4/game), assists (3.1) and steals (1.6), adding 3.9 rebounds and shooting 42.5 percent overall and 37.5 percent from 3-point range. An advertising and promotion major with a 3.67 GPA, Gitzen ranks 10th in the MVC at 80.2 percent from the foul line, and has scored in double figures 20 times this season with a pair of double-doubles. For her career, Gitzen has 937 career points, 439 rebounds, 271 assists and 155 steals, one of only six players in school history to reach those numbers in all four categories.

Willard scores 11.6 points per game and shoots 84 percent from the foul line this season, starting all 29 games for MSU. The junior guard owns a 3.78 GPA in finance, and has 17 double-figure scoring games this year with a high of 29 points against Bradley, a game in which she set a JQH Arena record with 13 field goals. The Lebanon, Mo., native has 942 points in her Lady Bear career, and ranks fifth in school history with a .844 free throw percentage.

The criteria for the scholar-athlete team balloting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for the Google Cloud Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, have played at least 75-percent of a team's games, and must carry at least a 3.20 GPA (on a 4.0 scale). Student-athletes must also have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution (true and redshirt freshmen are not eligible) and must have completed at least one full academic year at the institution. A total of 42 Valley student-athletes met the nomination criteria for scholar-athlete honors in 2019.

The Lady Bears (20-9, 16-2) are the No. 2 seed at this week's MVC Tournament in Moline, Ill., and open play on Friday at 6 p.m. against the winner of Thursday's game between No. 7 Loyola and 10th-seeded Evansville.