ST. LOUIS – UNI men’s basketball’s Nate Heise was named as a Third Team All-Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) selection on Wednesday night by the league as part of the conference’s annual season awards banquet.
The selection is the first all-conference honor in the career of the junior guard, who recorded a career year following a season-ending injury that limited him to just two games a year ago.
A native of Lake City, Minnesota, Heise led the Panthers in scoring during the regular season with 13.8 points per game (408 total points) while also pulling down 6.3 rebounds per contest, second-most on the UNI roster. Heise, who led the way for Northern Iowa with 33 minutes played per game, also led the Panthers with a team-high 73 assists and 18 blocked shots, as well as 29 steals.
During his milestone season, Heise recorded four double-doubles to tie for sixth-most in the league and scored in double figures in 20 of his 30 games played this year. In the regular season opener in November, Heise surpassed 500 career points with a 20-point performance at North Texas and would score 20+ points in four other games throughout the season. Heise posted a career-high 25 points in a December home victory over Prairie View A&M and subsequently followed with a 24-point outing five days later in a win over Alcorn State, earning him his first career MVC Player of the Week award.
No stranger to earning recognition from the conference office, Heise earlier this week was selected to the MVC Scholar-Athlete Second Team for a second straight season. A 2021 member of the MVC All-Freshman Team, Heise is also a two-time MVC Honor Roll recipient and 2022 winner of the MVC Commissioner’s Academic Excellence Award.
Heise and the Panthers will begin their postseason on Friday, March 8 in the quarterfinal round of the MVC Tournament against the winner of Thursday’s Belmont and Valparaiso matchup. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT at Enterprise Center in St. Louis with live coverage available on the MVC TV Network/ESPN+ and the Panther Sports Radio Network.
FULL MVC MEN’S BASKETBALL AWARDS
Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year: Tucker DeVries (Drake)
Newcomer of the Year: Ryan Conwell (Indiana State)
Freshman of the Year: Cooper Schwieger (Valparaiso)
Defensive Player of the Year: Malevy Leons (Bradley)
Sixth Man of the Year: Xavier Bledson (Indiana State)
Coach of the Year: Josh Schertz (Indiana State)
Most Improved Team Captain: Xavier Johnson (Southern Illinois)
All-Bench Team Captain: Xavier Bledson (Indiana State)
First Team All-MVC
Robbie Avila (Indiana State)
Darnell Brodie (Drake)
Duke Deen (Bradley)
Tucker DeVries (Drake)
Xavier Johnson (Southern Illinois)
Malevy Leons (Bradley)
Second Team All-MVC
Ryan Conwell (Indiana State)
Ja’Kobi Gillespie (Belmont)
Jayson Kent (Indiana State)
Isaiah Swope (Indiana State)
Cade Tyson (Belmont)
Third Team All-MVC
Malik Dia (Belmont)
Connor Hickman (Bradley)
Nate Heise (UNI)
Julian Larry (Indiana State)
Alston Mason (Missouri State)
All-Newcomer Team
Ryan Conwell (Indiana State)
Malik Dia (Belmont)
Myles Foster (Illinois State)
Ben Humrichous (Evansville)
Isaiah Swope (Indiana State)
All-Freshman Team
Almar Atlason (Bradley)
Chuck Bailey III (Evansville)
Cooper Schwieger (Valparaiso)
Johnny Kinziger (Illinois State)
Kevin Overton (Drake)
All-Defensive Team
Ja’Kobi Gillespie (Belmont)
Jayson Kent (Indiana State)
Julian Larry (Indiana State)
Malevy Leons (Bradley)
Toby Okani (UIC)
Scholar-Athlete First Team
Quincy Anderson (Murray State)
Trent Brown (Southern Illinois)
Connor Hickman (Bradley)
Ben Humrichous (Evansville)
Filip Skobalj (UIC)
Cade Tyson (Belmont)
Scholar-Athlete Second Team
Xavier Bledson (Indiana State)
Michael Duax (UNI)
Conor Enright (Drake)
Nate Heise (UNI)
Jayson Kent (Indiana State)
Scholar-Athlete Honorable Mention
Damien Mayo Jr. (Missouri State)
Isaiah Walker (Belmont)
Landon Wolf (UNI)
