Long Beach State Women's Basketball Player Earns 2nd-Team Academic All-America Honors

Long Beach State (LBSU) senior guard Lauren Sims has been named to the 2009-10 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Women’s Basketball Second Team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

To be eligible for CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic honors, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum 3.30 GPA, be a significant contributor to the team and must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing.

Sims is the 49ers’ second-leading scorer, averaging 11.7 points per game. She is also tops on the team in 3-pointers made (60) and 3-point field goal percentage (39.5 percent). Sims has posted 16 double-figure scoring games, including a career-high 25 points at Miami where she tied a school single-season record with seven threes.

Sims has etched her name in the LBSU record books, ranking second among the 49ers’ career leaders in 3-point field goals made (158) and 3-point field goals attempted (423). She is also fourth in 3-point field goal percentage (37.4 percent).

In addition to her success on the court, Sims has excelled in the classroom, maintaining a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average as a biology-physiology major with a minor in chemistry. She was LBSU’s 2009-10 Rhodes Scholar candidate and was also a nominee for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. Recently, she was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Phi Kappa Phi Society at LBSU.

Earlier this year, Sims earned first-team CoSIDA Academic All District VIII honors after garnering second-team recognition in each of the last two years. She is also a two-time Academic All-Big West selection.

Sims joins Shannon Smith (1988) and Dana Wilkerson (1990) as the 49ers’ only CoSIDA Women’s Basketball Academic All-Americans. Both Smith and Wilkerson earned third-team honors.

Since the program’s inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 15,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA, covering all NCAA championship sports.

-- Todd Miles