TOLEDO, Ohio – Junior guard Marreon Jackson was named to the 2019-20 Lou Henson Award Preseason Watch List on Wednesday. The award is presented annually to the nation's top Division I mid-major player.
 
    Jackson opened his season last night by scoring a career-high 27 points and dishing out seven assists at Valparaiso. The Cleveland, Ohio native is the Rockets' leading returning scorer after ranking third on the team last year with 11.7 ppg. He also ranked fifth in the Mid-American Conference with a team-high 4.2 apg and seventh with 1.4 spg en route to earning honorable-mention all-league honors.
 
     The award honors Henson, the former Illinois and New Mexico State coach who won 775 games in 41 seasons.  Henson is the winningest coach in Illinois basketball history with 423 victories. During his 21 seasons (1975-1996), Henson led the Fighting Illini to 16 postseason appearances, including 12 NCAA tournaments and a Final Four appearance in 1989.

Henson, who is also the all-time winningest coach in New Mexico State history with 289 victories, is one of only 11 coaches to take two different schools to the NCAA Final Four. His teams have made 19 NCAA appearances and four NIT appearances.

The 2019-20 Lou Henson National Player of the Year Award will be announced in April 2020 in Atlanta, Ga., site of the men's Division I NCAA Basketball Championship.