On the same day as his fourth-straight appearance in a national postseason basketball tournament, Eastern Washington University and Big Sky Conference all-time leading scorer Bogdan Bliznyuk has repeated as a National Association of Basketball Coaches All-District 6 selection announced Tuesday (March 13).
 
Bliznyuk, whose team is playing at Utah Valley tonight at 6 p.m. in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational, was a first team selection. A year ago, he earned second team accolades while teammate Jacob Wiley was named to the first team. A total of seven Big Sky Conference players were among the 10 players honored in District 6.
 
His honor is the ninth all-district honor won by an Eagle, with Rodney Stuckey the first in 2006 and 2007 when he earned back-to-back first team accolades. Tyler Harvey and Venky Jois were also each honored twice.
 
Eastern has now been honored each of the past five seasons, including teams which have advanced to the 2015 NCAA Tournament and CBI Tournaments in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
 
The EWU and Big Sky all-time leading scorer with 2,142 points, Bliznyuk was the league's 2017-18 Most Valuable Player. He was the lone player to rank in the top 10 in the league in scoring, rebounding and assists, and enters tonight's game averaging 21.0 points (third, 28th in NCAA Division I), 6.8 rebounds (sixth) and 3.9 assists (second) per game. He has made 52.8 percent of his field goals (13th, 72nd nationally) and 90.0 percent of his free throws (second, 13th nationally), and broke the NCAA Division I single season record for consecutive free throws by making 77-straight from Dec. 31 to March 8.
 
Already with 12 school records, Bliznyuk is 24 points shy of a 13th. He has scored 714 points this season with the record of 783 set by Tyler Harvey three seasons ago. Harvey's mark ranks seventh in Big Sky history, and the only players ahead of Harvey are Montana State's Tyler Hall with 739 last year, Northern Colorado's Andre Spight with 745 thus far this season, Southern Utah's Randy Onwuasor with 780 last season and Weber State's Damian Lillard with 748 in 2012, as well as a pair of players at the top of the list with more than 800 points. Lawrence Butler of Idaho State scored 812 in 1979, and Dave Wagnon from Idaho State finished with 845 in 1966 in the league's third season of existence.
 
Less than a week ago, in a Big Sky Conference Tournament semifinal win on March 9 over Southern Utah, Bliznyuk broke the 24-year old league all-time career scoring record of 2,102 points set by Orlando Lightfoot from Idaho in three seasons from 1991-94. Just five players in the 55-year history of the league have hit the 2,000-point mark, and Bliznyuk stands above them all with a current total of 2,142 points in 137 career games.
 
EWU's NABC All-District Selections
2006 - Rodney Stuckey (1st team)
2007 - Rodney Stuckey (1st team)
2014 - Tyler Harvey (2nd team)
2015 - Tyler Harvey (1st team)
2015 - Venky Jois (1st team)
2016 - Austin McBroom (1st team)
2016 - Venky Jois (2nd team)
2017 - Jacob Wiley (1st team)
2017  - Bogdan Bliznyuk (2nd team)
2018  - Bogdan Bliznyuk (1st team)
 
 

More on the NABC All-District 6 Team . . .

The Big Sky Conference was represented by seven student-athletes on the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-District 6 Team. Idaho led the way with two selections in seniors Victor Sanders and Brayon Blake being named second team honorees.

Weber State sophomore Jerrick Harding, Eastern Washington senior Bogdan Bliznyuk, Montana junior Ahmaad Rorie and Northern Colorado senior Andre Spight collected first team nods. Sacramento State senior Justin Strings joined Sanders and Blake on the second team.

New Mexico State's Jemerrio Jones (1st) and Zach Lofton (2nd), and UT Rio Grande Valley's Nick Dixon (2nd) rounded out the all-district team to represent the Western Athletic Conference.

Bliznyuk broke the Big Sky tournament career and single-season scoring records last week in a runner-up finish for the Eagles with 193 and 82 points, respectively. The senior also gained national attention by breaking the NCAA Division I single-season consecutive free throws made streak with 77 from Dec. 31 to Mar. 8.

Harding and Spight joined Bliznyuk as unanimous All-Big Sky First Team selections this season. Harding paced the league with 22.0 points per game in his second season with the Wildcats, ranking third in the nation in scoring among freshmen and sophomores. Harding notched a league-best 46-point performance in the regular season finale at Montana State, breaking a 41-year-old school record and notching the 10th-best scoring performance in league history.

Spight ranked second in the league in scoring at 21.9 points per game while leading the conference with 106 three-pointers on the season to tie for the eighth-most in a single season in Big Sky history.

Rorie also earned All-Big Sky First Team honors while leading the Grizzlies with 17.2 points and 3.7 assists per game to guide Montana to regular season and tournament titles for an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

Blake rounded out the All-Big Sky First Team honorees this season, averaging 17.0 points and a league-high 9.6 rebounds per game to finish with 12 double-doubles on the season.

Sanders and Strings were second team all-conference picks with Sanders leading the Vandals with 19.0 points per game for fourth in the league and Strings averaging 17.9 points for the fifth-highest average in the Big Sky.  

 

2017-18 NABC ALL-DISTRICT 6 TEAM
FIRST TEAM
Name	Position	Class	School
Jerrick Harding	Guard	Sophomore	Weber State
Bogdan Bliznyuk	Guard/Forward	Senior	Eastern Washington
Ahmaad Rorie	Guard	Junior	Montana
Andre Spight	Guard	Senior	Northern Colorado
Jemerrio Jones	Forward	Senior	New Mexico State
SECOND TEAM
Name	Position	Class	School
Zach Lofton	Guard	Graduate	New Mexico State
Victor Sanders	Guard	Senior	Idaho
Nick Dixon	Guard	Senior	UT Rio Grande Valley
Brayon Blake	Forward	Senior	Idaho
Justin Strings	Forward	Senior	Sacramento State