« Men’s Basketball 2007-08

Peyton Stovall

School
Ball State University
Position
Forward
Ht
6'1
PPG
13.5
RPG
6.0
APG
2.2

Classroom

Stovall leads the team with a 3.1 GPA last semester and graduated in December as a double-major in sports administration and marketing. He has completed his internship in the Ball State Athletic Communications and Marketing office and has continued to work as a student assistant through the 2007-08 school year.

Character

Stovall was voted team captain by his teammates for the 2007-08 and is playing for his third head coach in his five-year career. He has served as a trusted advisor to the president of the university through recent years as well. He is regularly the first player to show up to practices and games and sets the bar high both on the court and in the classroom, by posting the highest GPA on the squad. Throughout Stovall’s career, he has had the challenge of battling back from two ACL surgeries (on the same knee) and has picked up where he left off each time by being a main contributor on the court. In addition to being named a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, Stovall is also one of five national finalists for the Coach John Wooden Citizenship Cup.

Community

Stovall regularly mentors a group of children at a local church in Muncie and is found making regular trips to area elementary schools. In June of 2007, he was a featured speaker to more than 840 high school student-athletes at the Indiana State High School Athletic Association Leadership Conference - the largest one-day athletic association conference in the nation. He is participating in Black Achievers Program in the Muncie community, spending two hours per week as a tutor at a local Baptist church and another two hours per week mentoring middle school students. Stovall has served as a liaison for Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE) since 2003, serving to spread a “Don’t Do Drugs” message to children in Muncie, and his hometown of Lafayette. He was a featured presenter two days a week at 7:30 a.m. during the summer at the Ball State Freshman Orientation—the session included speaking to more than 500 potential or incoming BSU freshmen and their parents each day; to welcome them to Ball State and answer any questions as a current student. He is active in the Ball State Student Government Association with candidates and officers on student issues. Stovall represented Ball State basketball to local elementary school art classes during the 2004-05 season in a program called “PAINT.” The art classes had the assignment of creating BSU basketball artwork and Stovall talked about the importance of the principles of “PAINT,”— Pride, Attitude, Imagination, Nobility and Teamwork. He attends local elementary schools (as a representative of Ball State basketball or on his own) to read books to students. He is active in campus events such as “Air Jam,” a Lip Sync show in front of more than 3,000 BSU students (the biggest campus event for students during Homecoming). Stovall was found to be visiting a longtime, elderly Ball State basketball fan in the hospital on Thanksgiving. He worked with the local radio network to help promote the 2007 Ball State football season and worked in the press box on gamedays at Scheumann Stadium.

Competition

Stovall’s competitive behavior can be best measured by his will to win. After overcoming two season-ending ACL injuries, he has continued to lead his team to victory while reaching milestones for himself. He is the 24th Cardinal to reach the 1,000-point mark and has also made145 three-point field goals to surpass Bonzi Wells (currently with the Houston Rockets) as the fourth all-time three-point scorer in Ball State history. As a senior so far, he scored 37 points and made 14 free throws, both career-highs, and tied his field goals madea career-high with 10 in a December match-up with Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Earlier in the season he went 7-12 for 16 points in 38 minutes vs. #5 Georgetown. He grabbed 10 rebounds and set a career high 43 minutes vs. UW-Milwaukee and scored 13 points and pulled down 12 boards vs. Butler, recording the first double-double of his career. As a junior, he averaged 8.8 points on the season while playing in all 31 games. He led the team in assists with 72 for the year. He finished junior year with122 career threes. He had team-highs of 18 points, seven assists (also a season high), three steals and 36 minutes played vs. Illinois State. He recorded a team-high 15 points and a career-high nine rebounds while matching a season-high of 39 minutes played vs. Akron. He sizzled for 22 points with five three-pointers vs. Temple and poured in 12 points with four assists and a season-high five rebounds in a season-high 39 minutes in the win over Ohio. Stovall entered his junior campaign as the top returning player in the Mid-American Conference in scoring, field goal percentage and three-point field goals made but received a medical redshirt after an injury in the second game of the season. As a sophomore, he ranked fifth in the MAC with his 16.7 points per game and also shot .449 from the floor and connected on 65 three-point field goals. He led the team in scoring 15 times and averaged 26.5 points per game in BSU’s final two regular season games—24 points at Eastern Michigan (March 2) and a career-high 29 vs. Western Michigan (March 5). He scored in double figures in 25 of 28 games and posted eight games with 20 or more points. He shot 50 percent or better from the field in 11 games and had a career-best six threes vs. Ohio and at Northern Illinois. His 467 total points rank fourth all-time at BSU for points by a sophomore. During his freshman campaign, Stovall was named to the MAC All-Freshman Team – just the eighth Cardinal to earn the honor in school history. He was runner-up in the league’s Freshman of the Year voting . He dished out a career-high nine assists with no turnovers in BSU’s win at Marshall. He led the team in assists (110) and steals (34), the first freshman at Ball State in 18 years to lead the team in both categories.