Chronicle Media

Former Rockford Auburn star Fred VanVleet has been named Missouri Valley Conference player of the year.

VanVleet, a senior guard at Wichita State, won the the league’s Larry Bird
Player of the Year in 2014 and was third last year.

He is one of only three players in MVC history to reach 600 career assists and 200 career steals, is also one of just nine players in league history to win the Larry Bird Trophy twice.

VanVleet received 100.5 total points to outdistance Evansville’s Egidijus Mockevicius, who finished second with 68 total points.

This marks the third-straight season that Wichita State has had two of the top three in the balloting.  In 2014, three Shockers were 1-2-3 in the voting — the first time in the history of the award that the top three point-getters were all from the same team.

Last year, VanVleet was third and his backcourt teammate Ron Baker was second.  Baker was third in the voting this year.  Voting was conducted by coaches, sports information directors and a media panel (voters could not vote for their own student-athlete.)

Notably, VanVleet and Baker are the first pair of guards from the same team to earn first-team all-MVC honors three-straight seasons in the league’s 109-year history.

VanVleet moved into the top-5 on the MVC’s all-time assists chart late last month with 617.