Of all the Division One basketball players in the country, South Dakota State has two of the most proficient off the court as well as on.
– The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) released its list of the 2013-14 Capital One Academic All-America® Division I Men’s Teams, as selected by CoSIDA members, on Thursday, a list that includes South Dakota State seniors Brayden Carlson as a first team selection and Jordan Dykstra as a second team honoree.
“This is an amazing day for our program, it’s astronomical to just get one guy on the Academic All-American team, and first team at that, but to have two guys in the top-10 out of 5,000 guys I think that would be eligible is unbelievable,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “We’re very proud of what Jordan and Brayden have done, and I think it speaks highly of our program and the kind of kids that we have here, not only good basketball players and good citizens, but also great students.”
A Brookings native and economics major with a 3.94 GPA, Carlson helped lead the Jackrabbits to back-to-back Summit League titles and NCAA Tournament appearances the last two seasons, and to a 16-10 overall record and 8-3 mark in The Summit League so far this season. He enters Saturday’s game at North Dakota State with 87 consecutive starts.
A two-time Capital One Academic All-District selection, Carlson becomes the fist CoSIDA Academic All-America first team selection at SDSU since Jim Higgins in 1972.
Carlson averages 15 points and 2.7 assists per game, and became the 45th member of the SDSU 1,000-Point Club at SDSU in a win at South Dakota on Feb. 1 and enters the weekend ranked 36th all-time at SDSU with 1,046 career points, ranked seventh in career 3-point field goal percentage at 40 percent and tied for 10th all-time at SDSU with 151 career 3-pointers.
Also a two-time Capital One Academic All-District selection with a 3.71 GPA in Biology/Pre-Dentistry, Dykstra also started the last 87 games for the Jackrabbits. He ranks fifth all-time at SDSU with 1,576 career points and sixth all-time with 793 career rebounds, seven shy of becoming just the third player in SDSU history with at least 1,500 career points and 800 career rebounds.
A Rock Valley, Iowa native in the midst of one of the most prolific careers in SDSU history, Dykstra leads the Jackrabbits this season with 16.4 points per game and leads The Summit League with 7.7 rebounds per game and with seven double-doubles.
The first Jackrabbits to earn the honor at the Division I level, Carlson and Dykstra join an elite group of Jackrabbits to earn CoSIDA Academic All-American honors.
Melvin Ejim of Iowa State was also named to the first team along with Aaron Craft of Ohio State, Drew Crawford of Northwestern and JJ Mann of Belmont.
