INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – The return of collegiate basketball means the return over here of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) handing out the weekly women’s five-member Ann Meyers Drysdale national player of the week, Tamika Catchings National Freshman Player of the Week, and National Team of the Week honors.
Companion awards, of course, are determined by board members elsewhere for men’s awards.
Conference realignment, for the moment, has calmed down and the next six months of USBWA women’s basketball weekly citations arrive with the sport enjoying its greatest national popularity at both collegiate and professional levels.
Unlike an earlier era when technology was less developed, women’s fans on any given night not being able to follow their favorite teams and national storylines on website streaming platforms of linear networks such as ESPN and Fox as well as at individual colleges is now a rarity and as the 50th anniversary of the start of the Associated Press weekly women’s rankings gets under way USBWA is going to be part of the celebration with a major initiative across the next six months soon to be announced.
The new season is but a week old with only a game or two each on collegiate schedules available for initial selections but the USBWA growth in 2023-24 to five winners for national honors never finds us wanting to consider the multitude achievements expected out of competition within mid-major and power four programs, especially as MTE attractions have boomed on non-conference slates.
The USBWA women’s awards, organized under Mel Greenberg, the USBWA Vice President for women’s basketball, are drawn from weekly conference honors as well as at-large additions, and nominations are welcome as each seven-day period rolls along to make sure no one is inadvertently overlooked.
There are no restrictions within a week on the number of national honors from within a team or conference, but vigilance is kept making sure everyone is given equal consideration.
Obviously, when distinctions must be made, the performance against the type of opposition is a consideration, but when significant records are achieved in a given week, be them at a school, conference, or at the national level, that obviously also counts a lot no matter the feeling of the matchup where they occur.
As noted here a year ago as games got under way, off how they are scheduled these days, great moments have begun happening for 2025-26 right from the opening tip.
For their performances in the period through Sunday, Nov. 9, the first five Ann Meyers Drysdale national women’s honorees are Fairfield roadrunner Meghan Andersen; Iowa State center Audi Crooks; Florida guard Liv McGill; Baylor guard Taliah Scott; and Princeton guard Fatima Tall. The first Tamika Catchings freshman of the week goes to USC guard Jazzy Davidson, and the team of the week is reigning NCAA champion UConn.
Andersen, a 6-1 junior road runner out of Wantagh, N.Y., who was the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference freshman of the year in 2024 and weekly USBWA Tamika Catchings winner and whose mom Denise was on two Fordham Patriot League champions before the Rams joined the Atlantic 10, averaged 32.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3 steals, in wins by the two-time reigning MAAC champions at Villanova and hosting Lehigh. Her 35 points, including 1,000th career point, at Villanova was a personal best while tying for second in program history as second fastest to reach the 1,000-point milestone in her 67th game.
She’s the second at Fairfield to reach 30 points in consecutive games behind Lou Lopez-Senechal, who was to be a graduate transfer at UConn and be drafted by Dallas in the WNBA. Andersen is the only player in Stags history with four separate 30-point games. Fairfield coaches say a road runner has the combo traits of forwards, centers and posts but also run the floor, making passes and gaining steals. On Monday, Andersen picked up another MAAC player of the week.
Crooks, a 6-3 junior center from Algona, Iowa, who was a third-team USBWA All-American and is the preseason Big 12 player of the year, in a 3-0 start by then-No. 14 Iowa State averaged 24.3 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists. She scored 20 points in the 85-36 opening win over St. Thomas (MN), a recent migrant to Division I; double-doubled with with 29 points and 14 boards in an 85-58 win at SWAC contender Southern U.; and then scored 21 points in 22 minutes in the 99-34 home win over Sacred Heart for her 70th straight game scoring in double figures. On Monday, Crooks was one of the honorees of the new weekly Big 12 Starting Five.
McGill, a 5-9 sophomore guard from Minneapolis and a graduate of the same Hopkins High as reigning WNBA rookie of the year Paige Bueckers, in getting her first USBWA award, averaged 32.0 points, 8.5 rebounds, 9.5 assists, in a pair of wins by the Gators. She scored 26 points and nine each of rebounds and assists for a near triple double in a 96-62 win over North Florida. She then torched the history books in a 94-52 win over Chattanooga, becoming the first Gator men’s or women’s player to to score 38 and deal 10 assists and do likewise with 38 points and seven steals. It’s also a program home game record. In compiling 64 points, 17 boards, 19 assists and 12 steals, according to OptaStats, the only NBA, WNBA, male or female Division I player other than McGill to go 60-15-15-10 in those categories over two games is Dwayne Wade (Feb. 28-March 2) in 2009.
Scott, a 5-9 redshirt sophomore guard, who has previously been at Arkansas and Auburn out of Orange Park, Fla., and was on the 2024 Southeastern Conference all-freshman team, in two wins by then-No. 16 Baylor averaged 26.5 points. In the 58-51 upset of then-No. 7 Duke in the Aflac Oui-Play doubleheader in Paris, France, she scored 24 points against the Blue Devils and then back home in Waco, Texas for the local opener against Ohio Valley Conference favorite Lenwood in a 76-63 victory in Foster Pavilion she had a game-high 29 points, shooting 9-16 from the field, including five 3-pointers. On Monday the Bears roared up nine spots from 16th to seventh in the first weekly Associated Press women’s poll following the opening weekly competition in its 50th anniversary season. On Monday, Scott was named the Big 12 player of the week and part of the league’s new Starting Five.
Tall, a 6-1 junior guard-forward from Silver Springs, Md., paced preseason Ivy favorite Princeton in an opening triumph of upsetting a Power Four member in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Georgia Tech (1-1) at McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta with a rallying 67-61 victory as she double-doubled with with 16 points and 14 rebounds, including 11 points and four boards in the decisive fourth quarter. Last season, she made the second team All-Ivy squad.
Davidson, a 6-1 guard from Clackamas, Oregon, drew quick attention in then-No. 18 USC’s rally to nip then-No. 9 N.C. State 69-68, Sunday, in the Ally Tipoff in Charlotte, N.C., to go 2-0 beating a Wolfpack squad that had eded then-No. 8 Tennessee in Greensboro, N.C., scoring 21 points and the go-ahead layup with 8.2 seconds left in regulation. She scored 11 points in the decisive fourth quarter.
Earlier in the season opening 87-48 win over New Mexico State at home, she scored 14 points with five rebounds. USC on Monday quickly returned to the AP Top 10 at No. 8 following the big upset and Davidson was named Big Ten freshman of the week.
Paige Bueckers may have moved on to the WNBA from UConn but the squad is quickly showing signs of no setbacks, having started as the preseason No. 1 team in the AP poll and racking up two victories over ACC teams beginning with a 79-66 victory over then-No. 20 Louisville in the first women’s participation of the Peraton Armed Forces Classic, originally set for Germany but then moved, because of the shutdown, to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. where sophomore Sarah Strong scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds against the Cardinals while senior Azzi Fudd scored 20 points in UConn’s 30th straight season-opening win since 1995. Then on Sunday, the Huskies hung another banner in Gampel Pavilion on the campus in Storrs and gained a solid 99-67 victory over Florida State as Strong scored 21 again and Fudd had 20 of her 23 in the first half. Southern Cal transfer Kayleigh Heckel had 12 points and six steals off the bench where UConn showed strength with a 37-17 advantage against the Seminoles substitutes. On Monday Strong picked up the Big East player of the week.
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 2026 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 2026 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Phoenix.
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.
2025-26 USBWA Women’s Weekly Honors
• Week ending Nov. 9: Meghan Andersen, Fairfield; Audi Crooks, Iowa State; Liv McGill, Florida; Taliah Scott, Baylor; Fatima Tall, Princeton (National); Jazzy Davidson, USC (Freshman); UConn (Team).
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