ROSEMONT, Ill. - The Big Ten Conference announced its Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award winners Thursday, including 120 student-athletes honored from the University of Illinois. The list recognizes student-athletes with a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.7 or higher for the 2020-21 academic year that were also named Academic All-Big Ten.

Big Ten Faculty Representatives established the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2008 to supplement the Academic All-Big Ten program. Distinguished Scholar Award recipients must have earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition in the previous academic year, must have been enrolled full time at the institution for the entire previous academic year (two semesters or three quarters) and earned a minimum GPA of 3.70 or better during the previous academic year, excluding any summer grades. The Academic All-Big Ten threshold is a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher for a student-athlete's academic career.