Oklahoma State's Athlete of the Year Candidates

Courtesy: Big12Sports.com           Release: 07/15/2013

Big 12 Athlete of the Year candidates will be highlighted each day through July 19. Fans who follow the Big 12 Conference on Facebook and twitter will then be able to vote for their male and female choices from July 19-23. Fan voting will be considered in the final tally for selecting this prestigious award.

Today's featured candidates are Oklahoma State's Marcus Smart and Natalja Piliusina.

MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR NOMINEE	FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR NOMINEE
Marcus Smart; Men's Basketball Freshman; Flower Mound, Texas ♦  Wayman Tisdale Award Winner (nation's top freshman by U.S. Basketball Writers Association) ♦  Consensus Second-Team All-American ♦  Sporting News Freshman of the Year ♦  Big 12 Player and Freshman of the Year ♦  Member of the USA Basketball U19 Team at the World Championships	Natalja Piliusina; Cross Country, Indoor & Outdoor Track Junior; Klaipeda, Lithuania ♦  Won the NCAA Outdoor Championship in the 1,500 meters ♦  Became the second OSU female to win an individual outdoor NCAA championship ♦  Indoor and Outdoor All-American ♦  Won her fifth-straight Big 12 800-meter title (third indoors) ♦  Ran the top 1,500-meter time in the NCAA, a 4:09.57 at the Payton Jordan Invite