Gophers senior guard Emily Fox and junior center Ashley Ellis-Milan were selected to Big Ten Conference honor squads, released today by Big Ten officials.

Fox was named to the All-Big Ten Second Team by votes of both the league coaches and media. Ellis-Milan earned a spot on the coaches’ and media’s All-Big Ten Third Team.

Minnesota freshman guard Kiara Buford was voted the Big Ten’s All-Freshmen Team.

Fox is a three-time All-Big Ten honoree, previously earning second-team accord in 2007 and first-team acclaim a year ago. She leads the Gophers in scoring averaging 12.8 points a game, shares the team lead in steals with 64 and is second in assists in 116. During the season, Fox worked her way up to No. 8 on the Minnesota all-time scoring list and currently has 1,411 career points.

Ellis-Milan picks up her first postseason accolade voted upon by the Big Ten coaches. Following her sophomore season in 2008, Ellis-Milan was selected to the All-Big Ten Third Team by the Big Ten media. Ellis-Milan is second on the team in scoring tallying 11.8 points a game overall, and a team-best 12.8 points per game average in Conference play. She pulls down an average of 7.4 rebounds a game, the Gophers’ top rebounder for the last three seasons. Ellis-Milan is nearing the 1,000-career points milestone and enters the Big Ten Tournament with 958 career points.

Buford is just the third Minnesota freshman to earn Conference rookie accolades, following Janel McCarville who was named the 2002 Freshman of the Year and Brittany McCoy, who collected All-Freshman Team accord in 2007. Buford is averaging 7.2 points a game in 2008-09.

Gophers senior guard Kay Sylva was named as Minnesota’s recipient of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award. Awardwinners are student-athletes who have distinguished themselves through sportsmanship and ethical behavior. In addition, they must be in good academic standing and have demonstrated good citizenship outside of the sports-competition setting.