Drake’s Bennett Stirtz has been named the MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year and head coach Ben McCollum was named Coach of the Year among multiple honors awarded to the Bulldogs, the league announced Wednesday morning.
Stirtz is just the third player in league history to earn the Larry Bird Trophy in his first season in the MVC. Player of the Year was not the only honor given to the Liberty, Mo., native, however. Stirtz was also named Newcomer of the Year, selected First Team All-MVC, and named to the All-Newcomer Team. The others to earn Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year in the same season include Drake’s Lewis Lloyd (1980) and Drake’s Curt Smith (1993).
Stirtz leads the MVC in scoring (18.93), assists (5.93) and steals (2.20). Only two others on record have done so in MVC history: Anthony Manuel of Bradley (1989), and Curt Smith of Drake (1993). Stirtz, who leads the nation in minutes per game, is the only player in the NCAA to lead his league in scoring, assists, and steals.
Other Bulldogs to win the league’s Larry Bird trophy include Jeff Halliburton (1971), Lewis Lloyd (1980 and 1981), Curt Smith (1993), Adam Emmenecker (2008), and Tucker DeVries (2023, 2024) The league began honoring a Player of the Year for the first time in 1969.
McCollum joins 21 other coaches to a win an MVC men’s basketball title in his first year in the league. He’s the 14th rookie coach to win the league’s Coach of the Year award, which was first presented in 1949.
Fellow Bulldog rookie coaches Gary Garner (1982), Keno Davis (2008), and Darian DeVries (2019) also accomplished the feat. McCollum joins Davis (2008), Garner (1982), Rudy Washington (1993), Maury John (1964, 1968, 1969 and 1970), and DeVries (2019, 2021) as Drake coaches to earn the league’s top honor.