As the 2025/26 Player of the Year race heats up, Tuesday's NCAA women's basketball conference awards teased the front-runners for this year's national honors.
The Big Ten named UCLA center Lauren Betts its Big Ten Player of the Year (PoY) and, for the second season in a row, the Bruins' star also collected the conference's Defensive Player of the Year (DPoY) award.
Also running it back this year is Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, who became the first-ever ACC player to earn both PoY and DPoY in back-to-back seasons. Even more, the junior guard continued her iron grip on the ACC's defensive title — an honor Hidalgo has won in all three of her NCAA seasons.
For the second year in a row, a TCU transfer and a West Virginia standout scored the Big 12's top honors, as Hidalgo's former teammate Olivia Miles took home the conference's PoY title in her first season as a Horned Frog, while Mountaineer senior Jordan Harrison earned the DPoY award.
Meanwhile in the SEC, Vanderbilt sophomore and reigning Division I scoring leader Mikayla Blakes rose to the top of the NCAA's deepest conference to win PoY, while South Carolina's Raven Johnson capped her senior year with the Gamecocks as the SEC's DPoY.
"I just want to do whatever my team needed me to do and put me in that position to be able to win," Blakes said this week.
With a brand-new NCAA basketball PoY guaranteed this year after a March Madness injury benched USC's 2024/25 winner JuJu Watkins for the season, fans can expect UConn stars Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd to remain in the mix alongside national shortlist leaders Betts, Blakes, and Hidalgo as Big East conference awards emerge later this week.
In the brief moment between Sunday's NCAA basketball regular-season finale and Wednesday's tip off of major conference tournaments, Division I (DI) leagues doled out their individual 2024/25 season awards to top performers on Tuesday — raising the temperature of the National Player of the Year debate.
No. 6 Notre Dame sophomore Hannah Hidalgo topped the ACC, with the conference naming her both Player of the Year (POY) and, for the second straight year, Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY).
Top-ranked Texas's Madison Booker took SEC POY honors just one year after becoming the first freshman to book POY in the Longhorns' previous conference, the Big 12.
Meanwhile, No. 12 Kentucky sophomore center Clara Strack snagged DPOY, rising to the top of a stacked SEC field that includes No. 9 LSU’s Aneesah Morrow, No. 5 South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards, and fellow Wildcat standout Georgia Amoore.
Taking over the Big 12 is No. 8 TCU transfer guard Hailey Van Lith, who became the first Horned Frog to earn POY alongside the conference's Newcomer of the Year award. Earning the league's DPOY nod is No. 16 West Virginia senior JJ Quinerly, who booked the honor for the second season in a row.
After leading the No. 2 USC to a regular-season title, sophomore star JuJu Watkins booked Big Ten POY, while fellow conference debutant No. 4 UCLA saw their standout center Lauren Betts take home DPOY honors.
Leaders emerge in National Player of the Year race
An NCAA basketball season defined by surging parity and momentum swings denied the emergence of any clear-cut National Player of the Year (NPOY) favorite, but three headliners managed to separate themselves from the pack entering postseason play.
Thanks to her late-season heroics, Big Ten leader Watkins is the second most prolific DI scorer at 24.4 points per game (PPG), only trailing No. 22 Florida State guard Ta'Niya Latson, who boasts 25.4 PPG.
Fellow NPOY frontrunner Morrow is just the second player to record 100 career double-doubles in NCAA DI history, though LSU’s recent skid could impact her individual award standing.
After becoming the first-ever freshman to win NPOY in 2021, No. 3 UConn star Paige Bueckers’s 53.3 season field goal percentage has the senior guard back in contention for the 2025 title.
With award-worthy performances across the NCAA bringing unprecedented parity to the sport's end-of-season honors, this year's NPOY race is vastly different from last season's back-to-back no-brainer win by Iowa legend Caitlin Clark, as multiple stars make the case for DI's top individual 2024/25 honor.