Guirantes, Mack & Johnson Earn Women’s Basketball All-Big Ten Awards
The decorated trio led the Scarlet Knights to nine consecutive wins to end the regular season and clinch the No. 3 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, tied for its highest B1G finish
Credit Source: Rutgers University Athletics
ROSEMONT, Ill. – Arella Guirantes, Tekia Mack and Diamond Johnson of Rutgers women’s basketball have been awarded in the 2020-21 All-Big Ten Teams and Honors, released by the conference office on Monday.
Arella Guirantes has been named First Team All-Big Ten for the second consecutive year by the coaches and media, and makes her first career appearance as one of five members on the Big Ten All-Defensive Team, selected by the media. Guirantes represents Rutgers’ fourth All-Big Ten First Team honoree, and is the only player to repeat since the Scarlet Knights joined the league in 2014-15.
Guirantes is the only player in the Big Ten to rank in the conference’s Top 5 of each the points, assists, steals and blocks per game categories. She’s third in scoring (20.6 ppg), fourth in assists (5.4 apg), third in blocks (2.0 bpg) and fifth in steals (2.1 spg). She recorded three 30-or-more-point games in Big Ten competition this season.
Diamond Johnson is Second Team All-Big Ten by the coaches and media, and a unanimous selection to the five-member Big Ten All-Freshman Team by the coaches (unanimous) and media. She is the first freshman from RU to make one of the top two All-Big Ten Teams, the first to make a Big Ten All-Freshman Team, and the first conference All-Freshman selection since Tyler Scaife in 2014 in the American Athletic Conference.
Still challenging for Rutgers’ all-time freshman scoring record with 17.4 points per game, the rookie ranks second in the conference (and 10th in the nation) with her .464 three-point shooting percentage, and fifth with 2.1 steals per game. The Philadelphia native has six games of 20 points or more, with the Scarlet Knights going 6-0 in those games. During a 5-0 stretch for RU, Johnson averaged 4.4 made three-pointers per game while scoring an average of 20.2 points.
Tekia Mack makes her second consecutive Big Ten All-Defensive Team by the coaches and media, the first Scarlet Knight to earn multiple defensive awards since joining the Big Ten. She also repeats as an All-Big Ten Honorable Mention for the second consecutive year.
Often the orchestrator of C. Vivian Stringer’s vaunted 55 defense, Mack has been a national leader in steals per game throughout the 2020-21 season. With 3.2 steals per game, she’s second in the conference and eighth nationally, while coming in 12th in the conference with 1.0 blocks per contest. Mack tied a RAC record with eight steals in a single game against Minnesota, and sparked the current nine-game winning streak with a career-high 26 points against Nebraska on Feb. 7, following it up with a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds in the victory at then-No. 21/20 Northwestern. Mack has gotten it done all over the court with averages of 11.4 points, 5.7 boards, and 3.1 assists.
The Scarlet Knights went 14-3 overall and 10-3 in the Big Ten, finishing third to tie for its highest place since joining the conference in 2014-15. They will take the No. 3 seed into the Big Ten Tournament this week at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, facing the winner of No. 6 Iowa/No. 11 Purdue in the quarterfinals on Thursday evening at approximately 9 p.m. ET.
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