University of Minnesota Athletics
Banham Named to Naismith Trophy Top 50
12/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
University of Minnesota senior guard Rachel Banham today was named to the early season Naismith Trophy Women's Top 50 watch list, as announced by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. The Naismith Women's Award is given to the nation's top female collegiate basketball player. It marks the second-straight season that Banham has made the list.
With the announcement of the Naismith Trophy Early Season Watch List, Banham has now been named to all three preseason watch lists for National Player of the Year. In addition to the Naismith, the guard is on the Wade Watch and Wooden Top 30 lists.
The 50 player watch list was compiled by the Atlanta Tipoff Club's Board of Selectors, which based its criteria on player performances from the previous year and expectations for the 2014-2015 college basketball season. Including Banham, seven players from the Big Ten made the list, with Nebraska's Rachel Theriot, Michigan State's Ariel Powers, Iowa's Samantha Logic, Northwestern's Nia Coffey, Maryland's Lexie Brown and Rutgers' Tyler Scaife joining the senior among the top 50.
Through nine games this season, Banham is averaging 20.0 points, 5.0 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game, while having posted 30 or more points on two occasions, including a season-high 35-point outing in Minnesota's overtime win over Butler on Sunday night.
Banham has connected on five or more three-pointers twice this season, with her 3.33 three-pointers per game ranking 12th in the NCAA. She also ranks 31st in points per game and 47th in assists per game.
Banham leads NCAA's active career leaders with her 2,173 career points and her 19.6 career points-per-game average ranks third among the nation's active players. She is second on Minnesota's career scoring register and needs just 113 points to surpass Lindsay Whalen for the Gopher record.
Whalen is one of two Gophers who have been named finalists for the Naismith Trophy in 2003 and 2004, while Janel McCarville joined the list in 2005.
History of the Naismith Trophy presented by AT&T
Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, founder of the game of basketball, the Naismith Trophy presented by AT&T is awarded annually to the women's and men's college basketball players of the year. First awarded in 1969 to UCLA's Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Naismith Trophy was sculpted by Marty C. Dawe of Atlanta and has become the most prestigious national honors awarded each year to the top women's and men's college basketball players in the nation.
Each year, the Atlanta Tipoff Club's board of selectors, comprised of leading basketball journalists, coaches and administrators from around the country, vote on player performance to ultimately select the winners.
Unique among national awards of this caliber, the Naismith Trophy presented by AT&T, allows fans to contribute an unprecedented 25 percent of the final vote for the women's and men's players of the year and the women's and men's coaches of the year using the text messaging functions on their cellular telephones.
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