| INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – Feast Week delivered lots of notable moments but yet just ahead on Wednesday and Thursday is the annual ACC/SEC Challenge in which a slew of ranked teams from two of the Power 4 conferences will be involved along with several others with recent appearances the last seasons in The Associated Press Women’s Poll.
No matter who appears as winners in these games, the nuances off last season’s mega realignment could see repeat matchups several months from now when March Madness arrives.
Short of national champion UConn, we already had a 75 percent reunion at the Players Era championship in Las Vegas of last season’s Final Four in Tampa of which three of the teams have been in the Top 5.
Though the event didn’t go well for Duke, the Blue Devils could gain attention Thursday hosting No. 5 LSU which has reached 100 points in all eight games to set an NCAA record that had existed since Tigers coach Kim Mulkey played on the 6-0 start by Louisiana Tech on the way to winning the first NCAA title in 1981-82.
This week’s women’s honorees from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) all came out of the Thanksgiving week-related multiple team events held in the tropics and at other locales around the nation.
The USBWA women’s awards, organized under Mel Greenberg, the USBWA Vice President for women’s basketball, are drawn from weekly conference honors as well as at-large additions. Nominations are welcome as each seven-day period rolls along to make sure no one is inadvertently overlooked.
There is no restriction within a week on the number of national honors received within a conference, especially the way realignment has affected membership size.
For the period through Sunday, Nov. 30, the five Ann Meyers Drysdale national women’s honorees of the week are Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes; Iowa State center Audi Crooks; Murray State forward Sharnecce Currie-Jelks; UCLA guard-forward Gabriela Jacquez; and North Carolina guard Indya Nivar.
The Tamika Catchings Freshman of the Week is Mississippi State forward Madison Francis, and the National Team of the Week is Texas.
Blakes, a 5-8 sophomore guard from Somerset, N.J., who was a past USBWA honoree as a freshman and who has helped lead Vanderbilt, coached by former UConn star Shea Ralph, back into national prominence. She helped lead the now No. 15 Commodores (8-0) to the Paradise Jam-Island Division crown in St. Thomas, V.I., with a pair of victories 88-66 over Oregon State and 84-71 over BYU scoring 35 points against the Beavers shooting 12-22 from the field with three steals and four assists, and then scoring 27 points in the title round with six assists, three steals and four boards to average 31 points in the two victories. She was named the SEC’s Player of the Week.
Crooks, a 6-3 junior center from Algona, Iowa, continues to outdo herself, picking up her third USBWA honor in the past four weeks, a consistency previously shown by former USBWA national Ann Myers Drysdale honorees Caitlin Clark (Iowa) and Paige Bueckers (UConn), who went on to become successive WNBA rookies of the year. Besides leading Iowa State (9-0) to tenth to date, in last week’s 2-0 run to the Cocoon Hoops-Blue Heron title at Fort Myers, Fla., with an 84-73 victory over Marquette and a 106-95 over Indiana, she scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds in the opener followed by a personal best 47 points, shooting 19-25 from the field with four rebounds against the Hoosiers. On Monday, she picked up another Big 12 Player of the Week citation.
Currie-Jelks, a 6-2 junior forward from Jackson, Tenn., and transfer from Indiana, led Murray State (5-2) on a 2-0 run to the Daytona Beach Classic title in Florida with an 88-83 win over Atlantic 10 tourney champion George Mason and an 82-77 triumph over Boston College. She averaged 27.5 points and 10.5 rebounds, scoring 32 points and grabbing 11 boards, shooting 9-14 from the floor and 14-16 from the line against the Patriots followed by 23 points and 10 boards shooting 8-13 from the floor. In the two games, she combined for 17-27 shooting 87.5 percent from the floor and 21-24 from the line. On Monday, she was named both Missouri Valley Conference Player and Newcomer of the Week.
Jacquez, a 6-0 senior-guard forward from Camarillo, Calif., after scoring just four points against Texas in the Players Era opening loss, collected 23 points with five boards shooting 8-16 from the field, including 3-5 from deep the next day in the 89-59 rout of Duke by the then No. 3 Bruins (8-1) and then came home to help end then-No. 14 Tennessee’s five-game win streak with an 89-59 win in Pauley Pavilion, scoring 29 points with three assists, three rebounds, two steals, shooting 10-14 from the field, including 5-6 from beyond the arc. On Monday, UCLA only slipped to fourth and she was named Big Ten Player of the Week.
Nivar, a 5-10 senior guard from Apex, N.C. led No. 11 North Carolina (8-1), which climbed a spot Monday, to a 3-0 run to the Cancun Challenge-Mayan Division title in Mexico beating South Dakota State, Kansas State and Columbia, the latter game reuniting Tar Heels coach Courtney Banghart against Megan Griffith, her former assistant at Princeton. In the first game, Nivar had 13 points, 12 rebounds, 10 steals and five assists for the second triple-double in program history, shooting 6-11 from the field. She followed with 14 points, seven assists, four steals, while shooting 5-7 from the field and then, against the Lions, she had 11 points, six boards, six assists and six steals. On Monday, she was named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Week. North Carolina is at Texas in the challenge series Thursday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
Francis, a 6-2 freshman forward from Lancaster, N.Y., helped lead Mississippi State (7-1) to the Emerald Coast Classic Bay Bracket title in Niceville, Fla., scoring 15 points with 6-6 from the line, six boards, four assists and three steals in a 65-51 win over Alcorn State, followed by 7-11 from the field for a career-high 17 points with six blocks and six rebounds in a 69-47 win over Middle Tennessee to earn event MVP honorees. Sunday back home in Starkville in a 66-54 win over ULM, she had eight points, 13 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
Texas (8-0) had quite the week, moving from fourth to second in the AP Poll sweeping the Players Era two games beating then-No. 3 UCLA, 76-65, nipping then-No. 2 and SEC rival South Carolina, 66-64, and then coming home to Austin to beat Penn, 81-63. In the win over the Bruins, whom the Longhorns led by 23 points late in the third quarter, Rori Harmon scored 26 points, Madison Booker scored 16 with seven rebounds, and Jordan Lee scored 13. Against the Gamecocks, Lee had 19 points, Harmon hit the game-winner with one second left and had nine assists to pass now-Washington State coach Kammie Etheridge to become the program leader and was named the tournament MVP. Back home against the Quakers from Philadelphia of the Ivy League, Booker had 17 points and 10 rebounds.
On Monday, the ‘Horns moved ahead of unranked Stanford to second with 647 appearances behind Tennessee (799) in the 50-year history of the AP women’s poll. UConn is fourth at 644. Texas also tied former Big 12 rival Baylor for sixth in Top 10 appearances at 326.
Since the 1987-88 season, the USBWA has named a women’s National Player of the Year. For the 2012-13 season, the national and weekly player award became named for Hall of Famer and former UCLA All-American Ann Meyers Drysdale while the national and weekly freshman award is being given in the name of former Tennessee all-American Tamika Catchings, which was applied at the start of the 2019-20 season.
At the conclusion of the regular season, the USBWA will name finalists for both individual awards, which is voted on by the entire membership of the USBWA.
The winners of the 2026 Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Year and Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year will be announced and presented at the USBWA’s annual awards event on site at the 2025-26 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Phoenix.
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 900 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball. It has selected a women’s All-America team since the 1996-97 season. For more information on the USBWA and its award programs, contact executive director Malcolm Moran at 814-574-1485.
2025-26 USBWA Women’s Weekly Honors
• Week ending Nov. 9: Meghan Andersen, Fairfield; Audi Crooks, Iowa State; Liv McGill, Florida; Taliah Scott, Baylor; Fadima Tall, Princeton (National); Jazzy Davidson, USC (Freshman); UConn (Team).
• Week ending Nov. 16: Zanai Barnett-Gay, Navy; Audi Crooks Iowa State; Olivia Olson, Michigan; Sayvia Sellers, Washington; Sydney Shaw, West Virginia (National); Addi Mack, Maryland (Freshman); UCLA (Team).
• Week ending Nov. 23: Maggie Doogan, Richmond; Azzi Fudd, UConn; Ava Heiden, Iowa; Ta’Niya Latson, South Carolina; Clara Strack, Kentucky (National); Lara Somfai, Stanford (Freshman); Rhode Island (Team).
• Week ending Nov. 30: Mikayla Blakes, Vanderbilt; Audi Crooks, Iowa State; Sharnecce Currie-Jelks, Murray State; Gabriela Jacquez, UCLA; Indya Nivar, North Carolina (National). Madison Francis, Mississippi State (Freshman); Texas (Team). |
