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Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and USC’s JuJu Watkins headlined the women’s college basketball players honored Saturday with a positional award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Clark, the national scoring leader, was named the Nancy Lieberman Point Guard of the Year for the second straight season.
Watkins was honored as the Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard of the Year after setting a single-season freshman scoring record for DI women with 920 points.
Texas small forward Madison Booker meanwhile earned the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award after averaging 16.5 points per game during her freshman season.
Stanford players earned the other two positional awards. Kiki Iriafen was named the Katrina McClain Power Forward of the Year Award after her breakout 19.4 point-per-game junior season.
She recently posted one of the most dominant outings in women’s NCAA tournament history by racking up 41 points in a Round of 32 win over Iowa State.
The Cardinal reached the Sweet 16 partially thanks to defensive help from Iriafen’s teammate Cameron Brink, who was honored as the Lisa Leslie Center of the Year.
Brink led the nation with 3.74 blocks per game, and ranked fifth by pulling down 11.9 rebounds per contest.
The awards were announced the day before the women’s NCAA tournament final between Iowa and South Carolina, in which Clark will now look to lead the Hawkeyes to the program’s first NCAA title.
Clark has been named a finalist for the point guard award in each of her four seasons at Iowa.
She won her second trophy after a record-setting campaign saw her become the all-time leading scorer in all of NCAA DI basketball.
She also became the first women’s college basketball player to hold the national lead in points and assists for two straight seasons as she averaged 31.7 points and 9.0 assists.
While the Hall of Fame honored Clark ahead of what will be her last game for Iowa before entering the 2024 WNBA Draft, the awards also recognized some of the best freshmen in the nation.
Watkins ranked second in the scoring race behind Clark as she averaged 27.1 points per game in her freshman year for the Trojans.
The 18-year-old guard was the only player in college basketball with an average of more than 2.0 steals and 1.5 blocks per game heading into the NCAA tournament, per USC.
By boosting the team on both offense and defense, Watkins helped the Trojans enter the NCAA Tournament in a top seed for the first time since 1986.
Booker meanwhile set a Texas freshman record with 185 assists.
After dominating in conference play with 20.2 points per game against Big 12 opponents, Booker became the first freshman in conference history to be named Big 12 Player of the Year.
She accomplished these feats at a different position than her customary role of small forward. Booker made a midseason move to point guard in order to fill in for a season-ending injury to Rori Harmon.
That didn’t stop her from putting together one of the best freshman seasons in school history and earning a positional honor from the Hall of Fame.
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