Senior center Tina Charles was named a first team All-American by The Associated Press for the first time in her career Tuesday. She reached another milestone today.
Charles was named the Player of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association. She is the fifth UConn player to win the award, joining Maya Moore (2009), Diana Taurasi (2003), Sue Bird (2002) and Rebecca Lobo (1995).
“I think, especially coming into a program like that and you have all the resources and all the tools around, you should definitely try to soak everything in and try to make the best out of it,’’ Charles said. “So my four years here I just wanted to make the best out of my career.’’
The Associated Press National Player of the Year and Wade Trophy recipients will be announced Saturday in San Antonio. Charles is a leading candidate to earn both of these awards as well.
Charles and Moore were named to the 10-person USBWA All-America Team. UConn and No. 2 Stanford (Jayne Appel, Nnemkadi Ogwumike) were the only teams to have two players honored. Alysha Clark of Middle Tennessee, Victoria Dunlap of Kentucky, Kelsey Griffin of Nebraska, Jantel Lavender of Ohio State, Jasmine Thomas of Duke and Monica Wright of Virginia rounded out the team.
Nebraska Connie Yori was named Coach of the Year. Baylor’s Brittney Griner was named Freshman of the Year.
Rich
You forget that the award was for a season’s work. If you recall earlier in the season Maya’s shooting was somewhat off and Tina carried the team on a lot of the earlier televised games. Thankfully, though, Maya got hot again at the end of the season. But, like I said, it was for a season’s work and was deserved.
Did it occur to you that Maya simply wants the team to win and in a lot of situations, giving the ball to Tina for a relatively easy layup or hook shot is the best way to put points on the board?
And it’s not as if Maya isn’t scoring in her own right, or as if she’s sacrificing her open shots to feed the ball to Tina.
UCONN women’s basketball team is the best, they’ve proven it all over and over again….
It is my opinion that the girl’s greatest asset is that Maya accepts that Tina can get her writer’s reward by being a good girl and feeding the ball to Tina as she did the last month of the regular season. (Either that or sit on the bench). Really didn’t want to write this prior to the Baylor/UConn game but some things just stand out.