NEW YORK – The BIG EAST announced annual women’s basketball awards on Wednesday with regular-season champion and tournament top seed DePaul taking home two major awards. Senior guard Chanise Jenkins became the second Blue Demon in a row to claim BIG EAST Player of the Year plaudits, while Doug Bruno was selected BIG EAST Coach of the Year for the second time in three years. Marquette’s Allazia Blockton became the first Golden Eagle to be voted BIG EAST Freshman of the Year just days after breaking the conference’s rookie scoring record.
Additional individual award winners were BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year Aliyyah Handford of St. John’s, Sixth-Woman Award honoree Adrianna Hahn of Villanova, Most Improved Player McKayla Yentz of Marquette and BIG EAST Sportsmanship Award recipient from Villanova, Katherine Coyer. DePaul’s Megan Podkowa was recognized on Tuesday as the BIG EAST Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Jenkins, a 5-5 senior guard from Chicago, Ill., etched her name in the BIG EAST record book during her final campaign in the Windy City. She stretched her BIG EAST regular-season assists total to 332 to rank 12
th all-time in league history, while narrowly missing the top-20 cut for three-pointers made. Jenkins is one the most versatile players in the league, listing in the top 10 this season among conference players in points (No. 5; 15.2), assists (No. 3; 5.2), steals (No. 8; 1.7), assist-turnover ratio (No. 3; 2.3), free-throw percentage (No. 3; .823), field goal percentage (No. 8; .463) and three-pointers made (No. 8; 2.1). She has 16 games this season with at least five assists while scoring in double figures in all but four contests. Over 18 BIG EAST games this year, her stats improved nearly across the board compared to overall games, listing as the No. 4 scorer at 15.7 points per game to go along with .833 shooting (third) and a 5.4 assist average to rank second.
Jenkins is the second Blue Demon in league history to earn BIG EAST Player of the Year honors following Brittany Hrynko garnering the distinction in 2014-15.
Blockton, a two-time national freshman of the week and seven-time BIG EAST Freshman of the Week, broke the league’s rookie scoring mark on Saturday against DePaul, pushing her total to 337 points to pass Kerri Chatten’s mark of 335 set in 1994-95 at Providence. The Marquette guard has scored in double figures in every game but her collegiate debut, totaling 13 20-point games, a BIG EAST-best 11 double-digit rebounding performances, along with a league-high 11 double-doubles. She enters the postseason as the sixth-highest scoring freshman in Division I, averaging 18.7 points per game to rank third in the BIG EAST overall, while her 8.1 rebounding average lists second in the conference. She is also among the league leaders in steals and assists.
Now in his 30
th year, Bruno helped keep DePaul atop the BIG EAST leaderboard despite the graduation of All-American Hrynko. The Blue Demons returned three starters from last year in Jenkins, Jessica January and Podkowa, but has come on even stronger than during last year’s championship run. DePaul, who moved up to No. 18 in the latest Associated Press Poll, totaled the best record in BIG EAST play (16-2) since conference realignment, while becoming the first team to go undefeated in league road games since Notre Dame did so in 2012-13. Bruno earned career win No. 600 earlier in the season to join a distinguished list of coaches to reach the milestone. The Blue Demons enter the postseason with a 24-7 record, having reached the 20-win mark for the ninth consecutive season. DePaul is ranked in the top 10 nationally in six NCAA statistical categories including the most total assists among all Division I teams (660) and the seventh-best scoring average at 81.6 points per game.
Handford captains the defensive effort for St. John’s which holds opponents to just 61.1 points per game, third-best in the BIG EAST, while its 61.3 average in BIG EAST play ranks second. The senior guard’s 2.6 steals per game average in conference play was tops among all league players, while her 2.4 overall average lists second. She has 15 games of three-or-more steals, while setting a career high with 20 blocks this year so far. With four steals in Sunday’s regular-season finale, Handford, who became St. John’s all-time scoring leader on Friday, cracked the BIG EAST career top-20 list for steals with 149 to rank 20
th. She is St. John’s first BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year.
In two previous seasons at Marquette, Yentz had just two career starts under belt, averaging 9.7 minutes per game as a sophomore in 2014-15 to go along with 2.5 points per game. Fast forward to 2015-16 when she is a 29-game starter, ranking fourth on the team in scoring at 10.4 points per game and third on the squad in rebounding at 5.2 boards per contest. The junior had just 13 three-pointers to her credit entering the season and now heads into the postseason with 70 on the year, with her 2.4 per game average listing second in the BIG EAST. The 70 triples are a Marquette junior season record. Nearly 80 percent of her career scoring has come in 2015-16 alone, along with 77 percent of her rebounds and 81 percent of her blocks. Yentz is the first from Marquette to win the BIG EAST Most Improved Award.
Coyer is active both on and off the court for Villanova, concluding the regular season as the No. 5 scorer for the Wildcats at 6.7 points per game will ranking third in assists at 62 over 29 games played. Off the court the senior guard consistently participates in community initiatives such as the Special Olympics, MLK Day of Service, annual “Buddy Walks” at Villanova, and helping to set up basketball clinics at local elementary schools. She has 106 games under her belt, including 73 starts. Coyer is the fourth Wildcat to claim the BIG EAST Sportsmanship Award and first since Maria Getty earned the honor in 2009-10.
Also from Villanova, Hahn has come off the bench in 27 of 29 games this season but ranks third on the team in scoring at 10.4 points per game and is the team’s top shooter with a .435 clip. She’s drained nearly 42 percent of her attempts from three to rank third in the BIG EAST. With the recent injury to teammate Caroline Coyer, Hahn has stepped up and been a key part of the Wildcats’ success, averaging 21.3 points per game over the last three games to claim back-to-back BIG EAST Freshman of the Week honors and a national freshman of the week nod on Feb. 23. Hahn is the third straight Villanova player to earn the BIG EAST Sixth-Woman Award following Taylor Holeman in 2014-15 and Caroline Coyer in 2013-14. She is the fourth Villanova player overall to earn the recognition.
BIG EAST Player of the Year
Chanise Jenkins, DePaul, Sr., G
BIG EAST Freshman of the Year
Allazia Blockton, Marquette, Fr., G
BIG EAST Coach of the Year
Doug Bruno, DePaul
BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year
Aliyyah Handford, St. John’s, Sr., G
BIG EAST Most Improved Player
McKayla Yentz, Marquette, Jr., G
BIG EAST Sportsmanship Award
Katherine Coyer, Villanova, Sr., G
BIG EAST Sixth Woman Award
Adrianna Hahn, Villanova, Fr., G
BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete Award
Megan Podkowa, DePaul, Sr., G/F
(to be announced on Tuesday)