IWU’s Amelianovich Named “Academic All-American of the Year”

Reprinted with permission from Illinois Wesleyan University.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Illinois Wesleyan senior Keelan Amelianovich has been named the College Division Academic All-American of the Year and is a first team choice on the 2006 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American men’s basketball team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Amelianovich, a 6-foot-6 forward from Naperville (Neuqua Valley HS), was a second team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American last season. An accounting major with a 3.82 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale), he is a member of Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma scholastic honoraries and is one of 10 finalists for the Jostens Trophy, recognizing the outstanding student-athlete in Division III basketball.

For the 20-6 Titans this season, Amelianovich is averaging a team-high 18.2 points and is currently No. 9 in career scoring at IWU with 1468 points. He is tied for second at IWU with 235 3-pointers, behind only Korey Coon (245, 1996-2000) and has 80 3-pointers this year, which is second to his own season mark of 82 set in 2003-04.
He is 37th with 395 career rebounds and his .509 field goal percentage is 13th best. Amelianovich also has 523 career field goals, 16th at IWU.

Amelianovich is a three-time first team all-conference selection and was the league’s “Most Outstanding Player” as a sophomore. This year he led the conference with 3.07 3-pointers per game, was third with a .453 3-point field goal percentage, sixth in scoring (18.3), and 11th in field goal percentage (.520).

To be considered for the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® squads, players must be of at least sophomore standing, have a cumulative grade-point average of 3.2 (of 4.0), and be a starter or first-line reserve. A voting board representing the 1,800 members of CoSIDA chooses the teams.

It is the fifth time an Illinois Wesleyan student-athlete has earned the distinction. In 1999 and 2000, Korey Coon was the "Academic All-American of the Year" for men’s basketball. Titan quarterback Lon Erickson was the 1996 College Division Football "Academic All-America of the Year" and outfielder James Rinne won the "Academic All-America of the Year" honor in baseball in 1998.

Amelianovich’s selection give Illinois Wesleyan a total of 102 Academic All-America berths earned by Titan student-athletes since the program began in 1970, a total eclipsed by only six other schools, including Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Illinois Wesleyan has 15 first team Academic All-Americans in men’s basketball, a total that is second overall behind only UCLA (with 17). Teams with 13 first team Academic All-Americans are Indiana and Kansas. Other schools ranking highly in first team Academic All-Americans are Duke (12), Notre Dame (11), Kentucky (9), and Brigham Young and Millikin (8). Illinois Wesleyan also has had seven others in men’s basketball that earned second- or third-team Academic All-America honors.