INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – For the season’s sixth weekly women’s awards from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, for games ending Sunday, Jan. 15, Texas guard Shaylee Gonzales is the Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Week, Indiana guard Yarden Garzon is the Tamika Catchings freshman recipient and USC is the National Team of the Week.
The awards, organized under Mel Greenberg, the USBWA Vice President for women’s basketball, are drawn from the weekly conference citations as well as at-large additions.
Each week awards go to the Ann Meyers Drysdale women’s national player, the organization’s Tamika Catchings freshman player, and the USBWA’s women’s national team of the week.
Gonzales, a 5-10 graduate guard transfer from BYU and native of Gilbert, Ariz., averaged 18.5 points per game, shooting 16-for-24 from the field, including 5-of-10 from deep, in helping the Longhorns upset two visiting ranked teams in Big 12 competition in the Longhorns’ new Moody Center. The wins have lead the Longhorns back into the latest Associated Press women’s poll at No. 25. In the 72-59 win over then-No. 23 Kansas, she scored a season-high 26 points, shooting 11-of-16, and launched a personal 7-0 run in the fourth quarter to secure the win. She also had three steals. Against then-No. 15 Iowa State, a 68-53 win, she scored 11 points, shooting 5-of-8. She’s leading the team with a 12.0 points per game.
Yarden, a 6-3 freshman Israeli guard, helped the sixth-ranked Hoosiers to a pair of Big Ten wins, including defeating then-No. 9 Maryland, 68-61. For the week, she averaged 15.0 points, shooting 73 percent from the field, seven rebounds and 4.5 assists. On Sunday at home in a 93-56 rout of Wisconsin in front of a regular-season record crowd of 10,422, she scored the first seven points and finished with 19 points while matching season highs with eight rebounds and seven assists.
USC on Sunday had the national stunner, upsetting then-No. 2 Stanford, 55-46, after beating California two days earlier, completing a first weekend home sweep of Bay Area rivals in the Pac-12 since 2003-04. The Cardinal had lost only one other – a home setback in overtime to No. 1 and NCAA reigning champion South Carolina – then winning 12 straight before playing the Trojans, who were on a current 14-game losing streak in the series. Destiny Little, a transfer from the Gamecocks, had 18 points. The win under Lindsay Gottlieb, who the school hired two years ago from being an NBA assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers, snapped a 39-0 Stanford streak against Pac-12 opponents as well as 51-game win against unranked foes.
Since the 1987-88 season, the USBWA has named a women’s National Player of the Year. For the 2012-13 season, the national and weekly player award became named for Hall of Famer and former UCLA All-American Ann Meyers Drysdale while the national and weekly freshman award is being given in the name of former Tennessee all-American Tamika Catchings, which was applied at the start of the 2019-20 season.
At the conclusion of the regular season, the USBWA will name finalists for both individual awards, which is voted on by the entire membership of the USBWA.
The winners of the 2023 Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Year and Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year will be announced and presented at the USBWA’s annual awards event on site at the 2023 NCAA Women's Final Four in Dallas.
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 900 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball. It has selected a women's All-America team since the 1996-97 season. For more information on the USBWA and its award programs, contact executive director Malcolm Moran at 814-574-1485.