Nebraska junior Rachel Theriot was named one of 30 early season candidates for the 2015 John R. Wooden Award presented to the nation’s top women’s college basketball player.
The 30-player list is chosen by a preseason poll of national women’s college basketball media members.
Theriot was ranked as the No. 13 player in the nation by ESPN heading into this season and was a preseason first-team All-Big Ten selection. The 6-0 point guard from Middleburg Heights, Ohio, has the Huskers off to a 4-0 start and ranked No. 15 nationally by the Associated Press heading into this Friday’s game at UCLA.
Theriot is averaging 17.0 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals as a junior for the Huskers. Last season, she proved herself as one of the nation’s top young players, earning honorable-mention All-America accolades from the AP after claiming a first-team All-Big Ten award.
In 2013-14, Theriot averaged 14.1 points and 7.1 assists per game while leading the Big Ten with a 2.7-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Her 234 assists were a school record.
She guided the Huskers to their first-ever conference tournament title as the Big Ten Tournament MVP, averaging 18.7 points and a tournament-record 10.0 assists per game.
Defending NCAA Champion Connecticut boasts three players on the preseason Top 30 list: Moriah Jefferson, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, and Breanna Stewart, who finished third in the voting as a sophomore a year ago after averaging 19.4 ppg and 8.1 rebounds. Three more teams put a pair of players on the list, 14th-ranked California (Brittany Boyd, Rashanda Gray); No. 1 South Carolina (Aleighsa Welch, Tiffany Mitchell); and No. 4 Tennessee, (Bashaara Graves, Isabelle Harrison).
Other players of note nationally on the Top 30 list include Duke’s Elizabeth Williams, a three-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year pick; Stanford point guard Amber Orrange, who led the Cardinal to a win over UConn last week; and a trio of players who won the three-on-three world championship last summer: Louisville senior Sara Hammond, Notre Dame junior Jewell Loyd; and Mitchell.
Players not chosen to the preseason list are eligible for both the midseason list and the National Ballot. The National Ballot consists of 20 top players who have proven to their universities that they are making progress toward graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA. The Wooden Award All American team, consisting of the nation’s top fie players, will be announced the week of the Final Four.
The power conferences lead the way this preseason. The ACC led all leagues with six selections, followed by the Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC with five apiece. The American Athletic Conference followed with four selections, the Big 12 three, and two more conferences had one pick, the MAC and Big East. Nearly half of the players chosen, 14 out of 30, are seniors.
The 39th annual Wooden Award ceremony will honor the Men’s and Women’s Wooden Award winners, and will include the presentation of the Wooden Award All-America Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, which in 2015 will go to San Diego State Head Men’s Basketball Coach Steve Fisher. The event will take place the weekend of April 10-12, 2015.
John R. Wooden Award Women’s Preseason Top 30
| Name | School | Conference | |||
| Jillian Alleyne | Oregon | Pac-12 | 6-3 | F | |
| Rachel Banham | Minnesota | Big Ten | 5-9 | G | |
| Brittany Boyd | California | Pac-12 | 5-9 | G | |
| Crystal Bradford | Central Michigan | MAC | 6-0 | G | |
| Lexie Brown | Maryland | Big Ten | 5-9 | G | |
| Nina Davis | Baylor | Big 12 | 5-11 | F | |
| Kaela Davis | Georgia Tech | ACC | 6-2 | G | |
| Nneka Enemkpali | Texas | Big 12 | 6-1 | F | |
| Bashaara Graves | Tennessee | SEC | 6-2 | F | |
| Reshanda Gray | California | Pac-12 | 6-3 | F | |
| Allisha Gray | North Carolina | ACC | 6-0 | G | |
| Dearica Hamby | Wake Forest | ACC | 6-3 | F | |
| Sara Hammond | Louisville | ACC | 6-2 | F | |
| Isabelle Harrison | Tennessee | SEC | 6-3 | C | |
| Bria Holmes | West Virginia | Big 12 | 6-1 | G | |
| Brittany Hrynko | DePaul | Big East | 5-8 | G | |
| Moriah Jefferson | UConn | The American | 5-7 | G | |
| Samantha Logic | Iowa | Big Ten | 5-9 | G | |
| Jewell Loyd | Notre Dame | ACC | 5-10 | G | |
| Tiffany Mitchell | South Carolina | SEC | 5-9 | G | |
| Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis | UConn | The American | 5-11 | F | |
| Amber Orrange | Stanford | Pac-12 | 5-7 | G | |
| Kelsey Plum | Washington | Pac-12 | 5-8 | G | |
| Aerial Powers | Michigan State | Big Ten | 6-0 | F | |
| Breanna Stewart* | UConn | The American | 6-4 | F | |
| Rachel Theriot | Nebraska | Big Ten | 6-0 | G | |
| Courtney Walker | Texas A&M | SEC | 5-8 | G | |
| Aleighsa Welch | South Carolina | SEC | 6-0 | F | |
| Elizabeth Williams | Duke | ACC | 6-3 | C/F | |
| Courtney Williams | USF | The American | 5-8 | G
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