My Big Ten women’s basketball awards ballot

NCAA Womens Basketball: Ohio St. at Southern California — Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images

Who I picked for end of season awards, and the thoughts behind them.

It’s easy to complain about award snubs. I’ve done my fair share of it over the years for just about any award imaginable. When it comes to Big Ten college basketball though, it goes to another level. For example, I still think about the media person who didn’t put Ohio State guard Jacy Sheldon as a first-team All-Big Ten selection last season.

Well, this season was my first year having the honor of officially choosing award winners, and it’s not easy. Each program picks two people to vote for conference awards and after three seasons, and someone leaving the beat, the honor was bestowed onto me. It truly is an honor too, and one that I don’t take likely.

To prove it, and to make up for all of my complaining in the past, here are all of my selections, with notes about the thought process behind the picks, some Big Ten award logistics and still some complaining. Also, the pick that I had the most trouble making.

You might not like them, you may call me biased (or not biased enough), but that’s the risk I’m willing to take.

Player of the Year: JuJu Watkins – USC Trojans

NCAA Womens Basketball: UCLA at Southern California

I didn’t know who I was going to vote for in this category. It was between USC star JuJu Watkins and UCLA Bruins center Lauren Betts for me. I watch a lot of Big Ten basketball, but not every game. That’s impossible because I have a life, a spouse, three kids and a full-time job outside of writing about basketball.

So, when I made this pick, I was using the times I did watch the two stars not playing against Ohio State and also two matchups against the Buckeyes back in February. For most of the two conference games, the Scarlet and Gray did well as slowing them down. The first and third quarters against Betts featured a lot of Ajae Petty and Elsa Lemmilä cutting off passes from even getting to the 6-foot-7 center. When Ohio State didn’t do that (the second and fourth quarters), Betts went on a tear.

Against USC, guard/forward Taylor Thierry played Watkins mostly one-on-one and played great defense. Thierry held Watkins to 10 points until the Ohio State hybrid guard fouled out in the fourth quarter. Watkins scored seven in that quarter alone with Thierry out of the game.

My selection went down to the idea that the best players step up in the biggest moments. Watkins did that against UCLA on Feb. 13 with 38 points, 11 rebounds, 8 blocks and 5 assists. That game wasn’t a flash in the pan because Watkins did it against UCLA twice. On March 1, Watkins scored 30 points with five assists and three blocks.

Watkins leads the conference in scoring and also averages at least two blocks, two steals and six rebounds per game. The sophomore can do it all. The only thing keeping her at USC are WNBA age rules.

Coach of the Year: Lindsay Gottlieb – USC Trojans

I went between Gottlieb and Illinois head coach Shauna Green for this award. Green took a team that struggled last year and got them close to a double-bye in the B1G Tournament without her starting point guard.

How the teams ended the year is what made me flip to Gottlieb. This is not given to her because USC won the title. I picked Gottlieb because they’re a good coach and despite having a list of stars at her disposal, she got them to play together to the point that they upset UCLA twice and the games weren’t necessarily close.

Freshman of the Year: Jaloni Cambridge – Ohio State

The freshmen of the Big Ten are insane. More on that when I talk about the All-Freshman team, but point guard Jaloni Cambridge leads the pack.

Ohio State lost second team All-American Jacy Sheldon, and with it a huge gap in talent and ability. Head coach Kevin McGuff warned the public in the regular season that it would take time for Cambridge to fill that role, but he was only trying to curb expectations.

This season, Cambridge has more rebounds and assists per game than Sheldon did in her graduate season. More surprisingly is that Cambridge also eclipsed Sheldon in steals per game, something Sheldon’s name is all over the record books for at Ohio State. There are still three years left of Cambridge in Columbus and her trajectory is straight up.

But this is a conference award, not a team award. Cambridge is better than the freshmen across the Big Ten too. She’s one of only two freshmen running team offenses, alongside Mila Hollaway at Michigan (who Cambridge outscores by eight points per game in conference play).

USC’s Kennedy Smith and Michigan’s other two standout freshmen Syla Swords and Olivia Olson are all great, but Cambridge is a better scorer than the three while also simultaneously running the Buckeye offense. A team that earned a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament with three new players on the starting lineup.

If UConn’s Sarah Strong wasn’t the far and away National Freshman of the Year, Cambridge would have a strong case.

Defensive Player of the Year: JuJu Watkins – USC Trojans

Did I mention eight blocked shots against UCLA?

Watkins is the only player in the conference averaging two blocks and two steals per game. The sophomore also leads the conference in defensive win shares (the number of games won because of a player’s defense) with 2.9, with Betts in second place at 2.2

There’s seemingly nothing Watkins can’t do.

Sixth Player of the Year: Elsa Lemmilä – Ohio State

NCAA Womens Basketball: Purdue At Ohio St

This award was the most difficult one to choose. In my head, there wasn’t a far and away winner of this honor. There are many players where you can make a case, but none of them are necessarily a strong one.

The way I see a sixth player is someone who only comes in off the bench. In the brain wracking, I considered players like Karoline Striplin who came in to start after being on the bench to start the season, but that isn’t the nature of the sixth player. They are someone who comes off the bench and makes an immediate impact.

With that idea in mind, I went with Lemmilä. Over the last 10 games, Lemmilä entered games and has brought defense and calm as a freshman.

Part of the reason I struggled to put Lemmilä in this slot is because I don’t have her on the All-Freshman team (a lot more on that soon) but Lemmilä has proven time and time again that she can come in and make an impact regardless of the situation.

Against Betts and the Bruins, Lemmilä played the center one-on-one and stopped passes from getting to the big who’s only an inch taller than the Finn. Against the Minnesota Golden Gophers it was shooting and defense in the fourth quarter from Lemmilä that helped secure the win.

On Wednesday, against the No. 23 Michigan State Spartans, Lemmilä had five blocks, including four on forward Grace Vanslooten, which isn’t an easy task. This season, Lemmilä has the third most blocks in the conference, behind Betts and Wisconsin Badgers’ star Serah Williams.

It might be recency bias using a 10-game span, but tell me another bench player who has had as big of an impact as Lemmilä has to Ohio State.

Defensive Team

JuJu Watkins – USC
Taylor Thierry – Ohio State
Rayah Marshall – USC
Lauren Betts – UCLA
Destiny Adams – Rutgers

Syndication: Iowa City Press-Citizen — Destiny Adams (left) defending Addison O’Grady (right)

The way that the Big Ten selects Defensive Player of the Year is through the Defensive Team. The player who receives the most defensive team votes wins Defensive Player of the Year.

I already outlined Watkins’ defensive play above as fantastic. While Thierry struggled offensively down the stretch of this season, defensively the guard/forward is playing great. She’s second in steals per game and is an important piece of the Buckeyes’ full court defense.

USC’s Rayah Marshall and UCLA’s Betts are two of the best post defenders in the country, in the top three in blocks per game. For Adams, the lone piece of consistency for Rutgers, she is a powerful rebounder defensively and is up there with Thierry at the top of the Big Ten in forcing steals, leading Thierry by .1 to top the conference when I wrote this piece.

It’s unfortunate that Adams played for a struggling team, because if she was on a side like UCLA or USC, she’d be talked about as one of the best in the nation.

Freshman Team

Jaloni Cambridge – Ohio State
Olivia Olson – Michigan
Syla Swords – Michigan
Kennedy Smith – USC
Britt Prince – Nebraska

Like the Defensive Team, the freshman side also chooses the Freshman of the Year, so that’s why Cambridge is listed first.

The most notable piece of my top freshman side is the absence of Rutgers Scarlet Knights guard Kiyomi McMiller. In my head, McMiller is the second best freshman in the Big Ten. The guard scores with ease and doesn’t backdown to opponents (and here comes the “but”) but McMiller isn’t playing.

Time will tell why McMiller isn’t playing. Is she sitting out or is head coach Coquese Washington keeping her out? McMiller hasn’t played since Feb. 6 and even though Rutgers was in the hunt for a spot in the Big Ten Tournament, the situation was enough that McMiller either didn’t want to play or Washington didn’t want to play the freshman.

McMiller’s played less than 75% of Rutgers’ conference games this season. So, despite scoring 18.7 points per game through the non-conference schedule and part of the Big Ten slate, the freshman is mysteriously gone.

All-Big Ten Teams

Before I share the list of players, it’s important to talk about how the process works.

Everyone who votes does not pick a first team and a second team, with honorable mentions sprinkled in throughout. Voters make a list of players and rank them from 1 to 20. The No. 1 ranked person gets 20 points, No. 2 gets 19, No. 3 gets 18 and you can figure out the rest down the line.

So, here is the list of 20 players, ranked from No. 1 to No. 20. Whoever gets the most points gets onto the first team and the group with the second most points goes into the second.

JuJu Watkins – USC
Lauren Betts – UCLA
Kiki Iriafen – USC
Kiki Rice – UCLA
Cotie McMahon – Ohio State
Serah Williams – Wisconsin
Shyanne Sellers – Maryland
Kendall Bostic – Illinois
Julia Ayrault – Michigan State
Destiny Adams – Rutgers
Jaloni Cambridge – Ohio State
Rayah Marshall – USC
Lucy Olsen – Iowa
Alexis Markowski – Nebraska
Grace VanSlooten – Michigan State
Kaylene Smikle – Maryland
Elle Ladine – Washington
Sayvia Sellers – Washington
Hannah Stuelke – Iowa
Taylor Thierry – Ohio State

I will not go through my thought process on all 20 selections but here are a few finer points:

USC and UCLA are good. I would have put Dugalic in the top 20 as well for UCLA but she was not in consideration for the award.
Choosing the top 20 players is downright tough. I feel strong about my top seven selections. When I look at the remaining 13, I could change it a hundred more times than I already have, order-wise.
Thierry’s quiet offensive season had her at the bottom of the list. Defensively, Thierry has a great season, but seems ok with her output offensively, which might limit chances outside of college basketball.
Hannah Stuelke was also on the edge for me. Similar post players like Kendall Bostic and Alexis Markowski are out-producing the forward who spent some of the year trying to play a No. 4 role, unsuccessfully adjusting to the different role. A full season at the No. 5 and Stuelke is higher up the list.
Serah Williams has a similar problem to Destiny Adams of not getting the notoriety because the two play for sides near the bottom of the conference. Serah Williams is All-American caliber.

The Big Ten will announce the winners of postseason honors on Tuesday, March 4 at Noon ET on the “B1G Today” show on Big Ten Network.