INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – Events of this past week are definite proof that even if the stars of last season such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and others now ply their trade at the pro level in the WNBA, the atmosphere over the collegiate women’s game is still very electric.
Indeed, when it comes to look long range at who might become the Women’s Final Four and ultimate champion in Tampa next April, the candidates might be more plentiful this time around.
On a Saturday night in Brooklyn in the heart of the holiday season and prime time viewing a crowd of 9,000 plus filled the Barclays Center, home of the NBA Nets and WNBA champion Liberty, while the rest of the nation watched on FOX a major women’s hoops doubleheader featuring Iowa against Tennessee before Connecticut played Louisville.
Several days before came a whole series of exciting games off the annual ACC/SEC Challenge.
And at Villanova in the Philadelphia suburbs the women joined the transformation their male counterparts underwent a year earlier involving the City Series round-robin culminating in the Big 5 Classic, a triple header consisting of the city’s six Division I schools playing in one site for 5th, 3rd, and the championship all at the same location.
It’s not surprising that all these attractions gave rise to the newest set of women’s honorees from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.
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, Dec. 8, the five Ann Meyers Drysdale national women’s honorees of the week are Notre Dame guard Sonia Citron, Temple guard Tiarra East, Colorado State forward Emma Ronsiek, USC guard JuJu Watkins, and LSU guard Mikaylah Williams. The Tamika Catchings Freshman of the Week is Penn guard Sarah Miller, and for the first time there are two National Teams of the Week, both out of the Southeastern Conference in defending NCAA champion South Carolina and the program returning to prominence in Tennessee.
Citron, a 6-1 senior guard out of Eastchester, N.Y., played a role in the Irish (7-2) bounce back from two upset losses, beating then-No. 4 Texas 80-70 in overtime at home as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge and then in taking an ACC opener 93-62 at Syracuse on Sunday. In the first game against the Longhorns, giving them their first defeat of the season, Citron had 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds and had a career-high seven steals. “Soni … stepped up and made huge plays, time after time,” said Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey. “We were undersized in the post, so I thought she did a great job getting in there, getting rebounds, getting tips.” Against the Orange, she was 10-15 from the field, including 4-6 shooting from beyond the arc, scoring 25 points with 11 boards and four assists. On Monday the Irish moved up two spots to eighth in the latest Associated Press women’s poll and now await a visit Thursday for the Shamrock Challenge from No. 2 Connecticut.
East, a 5-10 senior guard from Louisville, Ky., playing with Temple in the women’s inaugural Big 5 Classic title game against Villanova at the home of the Wildcats, helped the Owls cast aside two earlier setbacks to them in the prior format as well as Friday’s 0-9 start from which Diana Richardson’s team rallied and took control in the second half to go to a 76-62 victory. She finished with 26 points, nailed a pair of dagger 3s and on Monday besides having been the media’s MVP at the event she was named the Big 5 and American Athletic Conference Player of the Week. “This win is up top for us because Villanova has always been a battle for us the past four years that I’ve been here and since coach Rich got here,” East said. “We wanted this win. We dug deep and stuck together and came out with a team win. Being in the heart of Philadelphia and bringing it back there was important because that’s what we wanted and worked for.” On Sunday Temple (5-3) will host No. 15 West Virginia.
Ronsiek, a 6-2 graduate forward from Sioux Falls, S.D., who transferred from Creighton to play at the Mountain West Conference school with her sister Hannah, a junior, played a key role in Sunday’s 74-72 overtime win at home against West Coast favorite Gonzaga, scoring 21 points off 7-14 from the field, including 4-8 from deep with four assists. One was the helper that fed the game-winner before time expired to reserve freshman Brooke Carlson, who scored 18 points off the bench. Ronsiek’s sister Hannah had 13 points and seven rebounds. At Creighton, the elder Ronsiek was a four-time all-Big East forward. Colorado State (7-3) is off until next Monday, when UTEP will visit Fort Collins.
Watkins, a 6-2 sophomore guard from Los Angeles who was the USBWA Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year last season, averaged 30 points and four rebounds in two wins with USC (8-1), which moved up a spot to fifth in Monday’s AP poll. At home in the Galen Center in a 94-52 win over Cal Baptist, she set a program record, two over the prior mark, with nine three-pointers off 11 attempts and she finished with 40 points, two under the arena record she set as a freshman. She had no turnovers against CBU. “It was just a matter of getting the nerves out and having fun,” Watkins said. On Sunday in what was once a Pac-12 game but now stood as a Big Ten opener, USC beat Oregon 66-53 in Eugene, and Watkins scored 21 points. On Monday she was named the Big Ten Player of the Week, being just the third conference player in the last 25 years with 40 points and nine shots from deep. On Tuesday the Trojans host Fresno State.
Williams, a 6-0 sophomore guard from Bossier City, La., who was SEC Freshman of the Year last season, in a 94-88 overtime win against Stanford in another of the ACC/SEC challenge games, this one against an ACC newcomer, she was 12-18 from the field, including 5-9 on three-pointers for 32 points. On Sunday, in her native city in a 100-58 win over Grambling, she was 5-10 from the field with six boards and scored 16 points while dealing five assists and grabbing three steals with two blocks. The two wins enabled the Tigers (11-0) to move up a spot to fourth where they are idle until hosting Louisiana on Sunday.
The Big 5 Classic produced two USBWA honorees this week, the second being Sarah Miller, a 5-10 guard from Phoenix, Ariz., who led Penn (7-3) to a fifth-place finish beating, La Salle 74-63, with 21 points, 18 in the first half. She set personal bests by nailing five shots from deep, along with her scoring total that came from 6-7 from the field. It was the Quakers’ fourth straight win after suffering three straight losses, two to Saint Joseph’s and Villanova in the pod rounds leading to the finals along with an overtime loss at home in The Palestra to Big West champion UC Irvine. She was named Ivy League Freshman of the Week on Monday and Quakers coach Mike McLaughlin won his 250th game within the program in his 16 seasons, the fifth as an Ivy women’s mentor to reach that total.
After showing vulnerability last month, getting routed 77-62 at UCLA to end a 43-game win streak allowing the Bruins to make their first assent to No. 1 in the 49-year history of the AP rankings, Dawn Staley’s South Carolina squad (9-1) has been on a tear using a balanced attack with three of four victims being ranked opponents. Two came this week, the first an 81-70 win over then-No. 8 Duke home in Columbia, another of the ACC/SEC Challenge games. In that one Chloe Kitts matched her career-high 21 points with 11 rebounds, the 62nd straight home win for Carolina. On Sunday, the NCAA champs travelled to Fort Worth, Texas, to meet then-No. 9 TCU, which had made its first entry to the Top 10, and blitzed the Horned Frogs from the unbeaten list 85-52. Ashlyn Watkins threw down her third career dunk and off the bench MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 20 while Te-Hina Paopao and Raven Johnson each scored 11, and Kitts grabbed 12 boards. On Sunday, the Gamecocks will host American Athletic Conference favorite South Florida.
Tennessee went to an outsider from the mid-major ranks in hiring Sun Belt champion Marshall coach Kim Caldwell and even if she still sees her job as a work in progress preparing for the SEC wars, she has the Lady Vols (7-0) as insiders for the first time in a year. Using her fierce pressing style with constant substitutionsas one might see in hockey, Tennessee was impressive last week edging, Florida State 79-77 at home in Knoxville in another ACC/SEC Challenge game. In that one, Talaysia Cooper, a USBWA honoree last month, scored 22 points with seven boards, three assists, a pair of steals and a pair of blocks. Though a large lead got whittled away, Zee Spearman, who had 13 points, hit the winning basket with 24 seconds left. Samara Spencer added 11 points. Then the show went on the road for the first time this season to Brooklyn in the opener of the Women’s Champions Classic against then-No. 17 Iowa and a tight game turned the Lady Vols’ way in the final three minutes on a 12-1 run for a 78-68 victory. Cooper had 19 of her 23 points in the second half, including the shot that turned the tide in a game the Hawkeyes committed 30 turnovers. Ruby Whitehorn added 16 points, Spencer and reserve Tess Darby each scored 11. The reward for the week came Monday when Tennessee entered the AP Poll at 19, ending a program-record 22-week drought dating to November 27, 2023. This is the poll’s 49th season dating to 1976 and the Lady Vols have made 779 appearances in the 870 weeks (89.5%). The team is off until Saturday, when NC Central visits.
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 2025 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 NCAA Women's Final Four in Tampa.
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.
2024-25 USBWA Women's Weekly Honors
• Week ending Nov. 10: Destiny Adams, Rutgers; Raegan Beers, Oklahoma; Lauren Betts, UCLA; Diamond Johnson, Norfolk State; Olivia Miles, Notre Dame; (National); Syla Swords, Michigan (Freshman); Oregon (Team).
• Week ending Nov. 17: Paige Bueckers, Connecticut; Hayley Cavinder, Miami; Talaysia Cooper, Tennessee; Jordyn Jenkins, UTSA; Harmoni Turner, Harvard (National); Kate Koval, Notre Dame (Freshman); TCU (team).
• Week ending Nov. 24: Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame; Lauren Jensen, Creighton; Maya McDermott, Northern Iowa; Rose Micheaux, Virginia Tech; Sarah Strong, Connecticut (National); Toby Fournier, Duke (Freshman); UCLA (Team).
• Week ending Dec. 1: Ta’Niya Latson, Florida State; Aneesah Morrow, LSU; Hailey Van Lith, TCU, Sedona Prince, TCU; Clara Strack, Kentucky (National); Justice Carlton, Texas (Freshman); Duke (Team).
• Week ending Dec. 8: Sonia Citron, Notre Dame; Tiarra East, Temple; Emma Ronsiek, Colorado State; JuJu Watkins, Southern Cal; Mikaylah Williams, LSU (National); Sarah Miller, Penn (Freshman); South Carolina, Tennessee (Team).