Men’s basketball player named to MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team
UIC men’s basketball junior forward Filip Skobalj (Belgrade, Serbia/Don Bosco-Schule Rostock) has been named to the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete First Team for the second consecutive year.
Skobalj maintains a 4.0 cumulative GPA as a management major. On the court, he is enjoying the best season of his three-year UIC career, registering personal-best averages in scoring (8.7 points per game), rebounding (3.7 per game), field-goal percentage (.483), three-point percentage (.435) and free-throw percentage (.833) while appearing in 29 games and starting 27 times. Skobalj also has scored in double figures 12 times this season, including a career-high 21 points on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting in a Feb. 11 win over Northern Iowa.
The MVC Scholar-Athlete teams are selected annually through a vote of the conference’s sports information directors. The criteria for the award mirrors the College Sports Communicators standards for Academic All-America nominations. Student-athletes must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically and must hold a minimum 3.50 cumulative GPA.
Skobalj and his UIC teammates will open postseason play at 8:30 p.m. Thursday against Southern Illinois in the first round of the 2024 State Farm MVC Tournament (“Arch Madness”) at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. The game will be televised live on the MVC TV Network, which includes NBC Sports Chicago Plus, Bally Sports Midwest, Bally Sports Indiana Extra, Bally Sports Kansas City, Bally Sports Southeast, Bally Sports South Extra and ESPN+. The radio broadcast of Thursday’s first-round game also will be carried worldwide on the Flames Network through UICFlames.com, with additional radio coverage in the St. Louis metro area on KTRS-AM (550).
Fans who would like purchase tickets for Thursday’s evening session featuring UIC (or all-session tickets for the full MVC Tournament) should contact the UIC Athletics Ticket Office at 312-413-8421 or via email at athleticsticketing@uic.edu.
For more information on UIC men’s basketball, fans are encouraged to visit UICFlames.com, or follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_MBB and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_mbb and @uicflames).
