March 4, 2004

Cape Girardeau, Mo. - Junior basketball guard Derek Winans of Southeast Missouri Stae University has been slected to the Academic All-America second team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Only 15 players out of over 4,000 Division I basketball players make the Academic All-America team. There are five players on the first, second and third team squads.

Winans, who has a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average in business management, has led the Southeast team in scoring in each of his first three seasons. This year, Winans averaged 14.5 points per game while shooting .470 from the field, .417 from three and .804 from the line.

"It is a tremendous honor for Derek to be named Academic All-America," said Southeast coach Gary Garner. "Derek is everything a college student-athlete should be. He is the hardest worker I have ever coached and he works just as hard in the classroom as he does on the court. To be in the top 10 players out of over 4,000 nationwide is a mind boggling accomplishment."

Winans, who has started 84 straight games at Southeast, already ranks as the seventh leading scorer and ninth leading assister in Southeast history. He has 1,253 career points and 230 career assists.

The first Southeast basketball player to ever be named Academic All-America, Winans this season ranked in the top 10 of four Ohio Valley Conference statistical categories. He was ninth in scoring, seventh in field goal percentage, third in 3-point field goal percentage and fifth in 3-point field goals made per game.

Winans is a three-time Ohio Valley Conference Academic Medal of Honor winner.