LAS VEGAS – In a vote of 25 media members who cover the league, Stanford’s Cameron Brink was chosen as both the Pac-12 Player and Defensive Player of the Year; USC’s JuJu Watkins was voted as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year; Oregon State’s Timea Gardiner was selected as the Pac-12 Sixth Player of the Year; Stanford’s Kiki Iriafen was voted the Pac-12 Most Improved Player of the Year, and Oregon State’s Scott Rueck was picked as Pac-12 Coach of the Year.
Started in 2010, the Pac-12 media awards are in addition to the Conference performance awards, presented by Nextiva, which are voted on by the league’s coaches and were announced on Tuesday. Those awards also featured Brink as the Pac-12 Player & Defensive Player of the Year, Watkins as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, Gardiner as the Sixth Player of the Year and Iriafen as the Most Improved of the Year.
PLAYER & DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR Cameron Brink, Sr., F, Stanford (Beaverton, Oregon)
Brink led the Cardinal to a 26-4 regular season finish and No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament, averaging over 15.0 points, 12.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game, the only NCAA DI player to do so. The league’s active career leader in rebounds (1,154) and blocks (397) also leads the nation this season with 3.6 blocks per game. She joined Stanford great Chiney Ogwumike as the only players to earn Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year honor three times, and sits just six blocks away from passing Stefanie Kaspersk (Oregon) for the second-most career blocks in league history.
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR JuJu Watkins, G, USC (Los Angeles, California)
Watkins burst onto the scene this season with a dozen 30-point performances, including a 51-point game on the road at then-No. 4 Stanford, setting a new USC single-game record in the process. She earned a record 14 Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors and tallied the most points by a Trojan in a single season (751) since 1985-86 when Cheryl Miller scored 805. Watkins’ 27.8 points per game trails only Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (32.3 PPG) nationally and is the second most in league history (Washington’s Kelsey Plum – 31.7 in 2016-17).
SIXTH PLAYER OF THE YEARTimea Gardiner, So. F, Oregon State (Ogden, Utah)
The sophomore appeared in all 29 games for Oregon State as the Beavers went 23-6 in the regular season, ranking second on the team with 11.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. Gardiner’s 10.2 points per game off the bench this season leads the Pac-12 as she enters the Pac-12 Tournament having scored in double figures in 10-straight games.
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER OF THE YEARKiki Iriafen, Jr., F, Stanford (Los Angeles, California)
Iriafen ranks third in the Pac-12 in points per game, rebounds per game and double-doubles (14). The junior started all 30 games for the regular season champion Cardinal, averaging a career-best 18.5 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. She is one of four players nationally to average over 18.0 points and 10.0 rebounds per game while shooting over 54.0% from the field.
COACH OF THE YEARScott Rueck, Oregon State
Rueck guided the Beavs to a 23-6 regular season finish and No. 4 seed in the Pac-12 tournament, after finishing 13-18 last season. Their 10-win improvement so far this season is the Beavers largest season-to-season turnaround since increasing 14 wins from the 2012-13 (10-21) to 2013-14 (24-11) campaigns. His squad reached the 20-win mark for the first time since the 2019-20 season (23-9 in 2019-20). With the level of competition in the Pac-12 this year, Oregon State rattled off a run of five-straight wins vs. ranked opponents from Jan. 26 to Feb. 16, with three of those five wins coming in consecutive games played. Oregon State’s five wins vs. AP Top 25 teams is its most in a season since 2017-18 when they won six, while the Beavs two wins vs. Colorado both came with the Buffs ranked in the Top 5, Oregon State’s first time in program history with multiple Top 5 wins in the same season.
ALL-PAC-12
ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM
ALL-FRESHMAN TEAM
– Pac-12.com –
