ST. LOUIS – Drake men's basketball junior swingman Tucker DeVries became the ninth-ever player to win the Larry Bird trophy in back-to-back seasons and joined a group 11 others to earn the award twice, after an announcement at the Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball awards banquet on Wednesday, March 6.
 
DeVries is the first athlete to claim Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year honors in consecutive seasons since Doug McDermott at Creighton (2012 and 20213). AJ Green of UNI was the last person to earn the Larry Bird trophy multiple times (2020 and 2022). Nobody has won the Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year trophy three times.
 
DeVries joined Lewis Lloyd as Drake players to pick up MVC Player of the Year status for two straight seasons. Other Drake Bulldogs to win the league's Larry Bird trophy include Jeff Halliburton (1971), Lloyd (1980 and 1981), Curt Smith (1993) and Adam Emmenecker (2008). The league began honoring a Player of the Year for the first time in 1969.
 
DeVries also joined a group of just five others to win both the league's Freshman of the Year honor and later earn the MVC's Larry Bird Trophy.  Others who have previously accomplished the feat include Ashraf Amaya of Southern Illinois; Doug McDermott; Seth Tuttle of UNI; Cameron Krutwig of Loyola; and AJ Green of UNI.  Also in 2023, DeVries became just the fourth sophomore to earn the league's top player honor (McDermott, Fred VanVleet of Wichita State and Green were the others.)
 
In pursuit of a repeat honor, DeVries was the MVC Preseason Player of the Year heading into this season and averaged 21.9 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.7 steals (all significant increases from last season) over the course of 30 games during the 2023-24 regular season campaign. He's the only player in NCAA Division I to average 20.0 points and 6.5 rebounds with 100 assists, 50 steals and 50 or more three-point makes.
 
Voting was conducted by coaches, sports information directors and a media panel (voters could not vote for their own student-athlete.)  Including this year, 0 freshmen, 4 sophomores, 19 juniors (eight of whom repeated) and 33 seniors have won the award (spanning 1969-2024). 
 
Graduate student forward Darnell Brodie continued to improve and landed a spot on the All-MVC First Team. Brodie put up 11.5 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists a night (all career-highs) while making 64.9 percent of his shots. Brodie was a member of the 2020-21 All-Newcomer Team and 2022-23 Most Improved Team.
 
Freshman guard Kevin Overton was runner-up in the MVC Freshman of the Year voting to solidify a place on the MVC All-Freshman squad. Overton averaged 12.0 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting from the field at a .456 clip.
 
The Bulldogs will open the State Farm MVC Tournament at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on Friday, March 8 against the winner of No. 7 Illinois State and No. 10 Evansville at 6 p.m. in the quarterfinal round.