Big East Conference

NEW YORK – DePaul University guard Billy Garrett Jr. has been selected as the BIG EAST Men’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year Presented by Sunkist. The selection was made by the Conference’s Academic Affairs Committee.   
 
A senior from Chicago, Ill, Garrett Jr. will receive a $2,000 scholarship which may be applied to graduate or professional studies.
 
Garrett Jr. holds a 3.24 grade point average in finance and will graduate later this month ahead of his class.  He is a three-time member of the BIG EAST All-Academic Team and has made the DePaul Athletic Director’s Honor Roll eight times.  He was selected as one of 30 candidates for the men’s basketball senior CLASS Award and was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches Good Works Team.  Earlier this week, he won the BIG EAST Sportsmanship Award.
 
Garrett Jr. has been a four-year standout on the floor as well.  He began his collegiate career by earning BIG EAST Rookie of the Year honors in 2013-14.  This season, he is averaging 14.9 points and 3.3 assists per game.  He ranks third in the BIG EAST in free throw shooting, making 88.2 percent and is the school’s all-time leader in free throws made.  Among active BIG EAST players he ranks first with 914 points in league games.  He is one of only two players in DePaul history to record at least 1,500 points and 400 career assists.
 
The BIG EAST Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year award is one of a number of scholarships presented by the BIG EAST Conference during the 2016-17 academic year. In addition, 20 student-athletes (one male and one female from each of the BIG EAST’s 10 member institutions) will receive postgraduate scholarships as the winners of their respective institutions’ Scholar-Athlete Award. The winners of the institutional and basketball awards are then eligible for the BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, which provides an additional postgraduate scholarship to one male and one female student-athlete.