The college basketball regular season is winding down, and it is the time of the year when everyone is voting for various honors. The race for the Division I national player of the year has narrowed to one.
Boston was the top ranked player in the country in January. Her case has gotten stronger as the Gamecocks are poised to take the top spot in the AP poll. There is no suspense with this honor.
Boston is on the All-America first team. In a season when some coaches are making successful debuts at new schools and others are lifting their programs to new heights, will Boston's mentor, Dawn Staley, earn coach of the year honors?
The overall No. 1 freshman missed a few months of the season when she got hurt. Who has been the top freshman?
As we stand a week from March, the top candidates for honors are being broken down by Charlie, Alexa, and Mechelle Voepel.
When arguing player of the year candidates, it can be tempting to pick the best player on the team. I would argue that the description doesn't adequately describe how good Boston has been this year.
According to Her Hoop Stats, Boston leads the nation in win shares at 11.7, and she is third in offensive win shares and second in defensive win shares. The advanced statistics show that Boston is what makes South Carolina great. When Boston is on the floor, the net rating is 43.04. When she is off it, that number drops to 3.41. No other South Carolina player has on-off swings as drastic as Destanni Henderson.
South Carolina might still be a good team without Boston. Would it be 25-1, including 11-0 against ranked teams, and the favorite to win the title in Minneapolis? I don't believe that.
Take it from Dawn.
The South Carolina coach told reporters last week that it was hard for him to imagine not having her in so many different areas. I don't want to imagine what life would be like without Boston.
Boston has done everything you would want a top post player to work on as she moved into her upper-class years. She embraced her leadership role and got stronger. She was already an outstanding player her first two seasons, but she has taken that to a higher level as a junior with her calm and consistency.
Boston had her 19th consecutive SEC double-double in a victory over Tennessee on Sunday. People doubling and tripling her has made her relax.
She has the skills to maneuver through it. Her ballhandling has improved. Her decision-making has improved. She was able to figure out a way to score. It is often from her rebound. She is a complete player.
Boston has several scoring threats, but she is still the top option. She doesn't rely on her size, she has become very mobile around the basket and has a quiet confidence that opponents notice.
Chamique Holdsclaw was a point guard for the Lady Vols and she admires what Boston is doing.
She is very good. She is strong and mobile and skilled with her hands. I enjoy watching her play. She deserves every award that she gets.
College GameDay will be at a women's basketball game in South Carolina for the first time in 11 years.
As Mechelle mentioned, Boston's improvement is obvious. In her three seasons, she has gone from very good to great, and doesn't seem to have hit her ceiling. Key statistical measures show that greatness. To me, the numbers are boiled down to two things: efficiency and winning. Boston has a Player Efficiency Rating that is tops in the country. Boston's positive contributions outweigh her negative ones by a greater margin than any other player. Boston is doing something to benefit her team.
The Gamecocks wouldn't be what they are without Boston. Boston isn't a perfect player. She is as close to one as we have today.
Queen Egbo grabs a rebound and sends a long pass to NaLyssa Smith, who scored to increase the lead over Texas.
NaLyssa Smith, the reigning Wade Trophy winner as well as a first-team All-American, has followed up her breakthrough season with an even better one. Smith has attempted a career-high 25 3-pointers so far this season, making seven, and hisVersatility in a more modern offensive system has been on full display. She is still getting it done for the new-look Bears and is giving her top two choices in the upcoming draft.
Smith is one of four players in Division I who average at least 20 points and 10 rebound per game, with 21.3 points on 55.2% shooting and 11.0 rebound. She has a win share of 9.2.
Lee set the NCAA D-I women's basketball scoring record with 61 points as Kansas State defeated Oklahoma.
Smith was my preseason player of the year, and despite her great season she has gotten lost a bit with so much attention going to Boston and Iowa. No star player has flown under the radar more than Lee. When Lee scored 61 points against Oklahoma on January 23, the entire sports world stood up and noticed, but she quickly disappeared from the conversation.
Lee has points and blocks that are good for fifth nationally and he has a higher win share than Boston. Kansas State, largely on the back of Lee, is about to return to the NCAA tournament after missing it a year ago. That deserves more than that.
The Iowa women's basketball team upset the 10th ranked Indiana 88-82.
Clark leads Division I in scoring and assists, and is also averaging 8.0 Rebounds. She has five triple-double watches on the season, and her games are frequently triple-double watches. In a victory over Indiana, Monday was a near miss with 29 points, eight rebound and eight assists. Clark is a great offensive force because of her ability to hit shots from anywhere on the court.
Clark would have a better chance of winning the national player of the year without Boston. Being a first-team All-American is a big deal for a sophomore, and Clark is almost certainly going to get that honor. She was a member of the 10-member WBCA All-American team as a freshman.
Both Haley Jones and Naz Hillmon are likely to get All-American first-team status. Hillmon, a senior forward, helped lead Michigan to its highest ranking in program history, and is averaging a double-double. Consistency is one of the hallmarks of Hillmon.
Jones' numbers on a deep team don't stand out as much, she is averaging 12.6 points, 7.9 rebound and 3.0 assists. She has been a good player on a squad that wears opponents down with its talent.
Jones was the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four last season and she can assert her dominance in times when the Cardinal need her. She did that on Sunday when the Cardinal had to come back from a double-digit deficit. Jones was the top-rated recruit in the class of 2019. Both are looking to lead their teams back to the Final Four.
The squad has established itself as the team to beat. Since the preseason, the Gamecocks have been the top ranked team in the country, and have not been given any reason to lose their top ranking. Only two teams in the AP Top 25 have fewer than three losses on the season.
The way that she and the Gamecocks have gone about it makes her deserving of coach of the year. South Carolina is 11-0 in games against ranked teams this season, six of which were by 14 or more points, and the team has demonstrated composure to pull out wins in tight games. The first coach to beat all four of them in the same season was Staley.
All five starters and seven of South Carolina's nine players who average at least 10 minutes per game were on the 2020-21 squad. The 2020-21 group went 26-5 and fell short of winning the SEC regular-season title, but this season's team has already secured a share of the league's regular-season crown with no signs of slowing down, in conference play or with March right around the corner.
In a Top 25 game, the Tigers were led by Alexis Morris with 20 points.
I believe that Staley will be the coach of the year. Being a great recruiter is one of the things that Staley has to work with. She brought the talent to Columbia, South Carolina. Two of the leading challengers are from the same conference.
In April, Kim Mulkey took over at LSU after 21 seasons and three national championship in basketball at Baylor. Everyone assumed that Mulkey would get the Tigers back near the top of the SEC. But this fast?
The fact that Mulkey has the team ranked 8th in the league is a testament to how powerful and immediate she is.
The biggest surprise in women's basketball this season is Florida, which is right behind LSU. The Gators appeared in full meltdown mode over the summer as coach Newbauer stepped down amid allegations of abusive behavior. The team's top scorer and rebounder, Lavender Briggs, was shut down for the season in January due to a stress reaction in her leg and then transferred to Maryland.
The Gators have a 20-7 overall record under interim head coach Kelly Rae Finley. They had a chance to win at LSU on Sunday, but they lost 66-61.
Another coach who has made an immediate impact in her first season at a program is Oklahoma's Jennie Baranczyk. Baranczyk took over for Coale, who retired after 25 seasons. The Sooners are tied for fourth in the Big 12 and have beaten two conference powerhouses. For the first time in two years, the Sooners have hit 20 wins.
NC State has secured a share of their first Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship since 1990 with the help of Wes Moore. NC State has 16 league victories, the most in program history, and will play Virginia Tech on Sunday.
Finley would get my vote because of what has happened at Florida. The greatness of South Carolina and Staley will be recognized. Each time a coach of the year is mentioned, I think of Georgia Tech's Nell Fortner. It defies logic that the Yellow Jackets have 10 wins in the conference and are still a top 25 NET team. Without a single player that averages more than 11 points per game, Fortner has been able to get them there.
Kierra was the second-leading scorer and point guard last year. Loyal McQueen, a starting guard, decided to transfer after three games. Fortner had a thin bench and no experienced ball handler. No matter. Georgia Tech has been able to score enough to complement one of the best defenses in the country that allows the fourth lowest points per game. Georgia, Connecticut and North Carolina were defeated by Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech is a lock to make a second straight NCAA tournament under Fortner, but the lack of depth is starting to catch up to the weary Yellow Jackets. She won't win the award, but Fortner has played the game of survival as well as any coach this season.
Aneesah Morrow has been an absolute force on both sides of the equation for the team. You know that Boston has a streak of 19 straight double-doubles, matching the SEC record set by Sylvia Fowles. Morrow has 21 consecutive double-doubles. Only three other players in the history of Division I women's basketball have had at least 20 in a row.
Morrow has shown up against some of the toughest competition this season. She put up 30 points and 14rebounds against Connecticut in January and also put up 24 and 16 against Arizona earlier in the season. Morrow is the fourth-best freshman in the country with a 9.6 win shares.
Morrow is my pick for the top freshman and there is no arguing with her production.
The top two ranked players in the freshman class have been injured. Johnson suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second game of the season against South Dakota.
Fudd had a foot injury that kept her out for more than two months. She has only played 13 games and is currently averaging 12.7 points.
The freshman guard has had the most impact on the team. She has played in 19 games and averaged 12.3 points and 3.5 rebound.
The Longhorns have gotten a big lift from guard Rori Harmon, who was our player of the week on Monday and is averaging over 10 points and five boards. She is a defensive force on the team.
Curry is the top scorer in the Pac-12 as a freshman.
Even though she played six games last season as an early entrant, Notre Dame's Olivia Miles still qualifies as a freshman and is one of the best. Second only to Clark in assists per game, Miles is already a dynamic passer with a flare rarely seen in a player this young.
Morrow is this year's best rookies, but I also think that Miles is going to be one of the future faces of the game. Her shooting confidence has already grown, and on a team with last year's Atlantic Coast Conference rookies of the year, including Maya Dodson, it's Miles who is the Irish's leading scorer. As a freshman, Sonia Citron excelled. The future of Notre Dame appears to be secure.
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