HOPEWELL, N.J. – Columbia women's basketball senior guard Abbey Hsu has been named to the watch list for the 2024 Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award presented by Her Hoop Stats. The 25-player watch list was announced on Wednesday.
First given out in 2020, the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award recognizes the best mid-major player in women's division I college basketball. It is named for six-time WNBA All-Star Becky Hammon, who became the first full-time female coach in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. She took over as the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces in 2022 and has won back-to-back WNBA titles in her first two seasons.
The 15-player midseason watch list will be announced in January, followed by 10 semifinalists announced in February. The five finalists will be announced in early March, with the winner announced around the Final Four. The list is fluid and players may play their way on or off the list over the course of the season.
To be eligible for this award, players must compete in one of the 26 conferences deemed to be "mid-major". The following conferences are considered high-major for the purposes of this award, and thus ineligible: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC.
The Becky Hammon Award is the latest watch list Hsu has landed on this preseason. Last week, she was named to the 2024 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award watch list, recognizing the top shooting guard in all of NCAA Div. I women's college basketball.
Hsu is coming off a season in which she scored 606 points (17.8 points per game) and broke the Ivy League's single-season record for made 3-pointers for the second year in a row – she made 112 last season and 108 the year prior. With 285 triples in her career, Hsu sits just two away from the Ivy League record of 287, currently held by Katie Benzan (Harvard, 2016-20). She was also named a unanimous First Team All-Ivy League selection, First Team All-Met (Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association), a semifinalist for the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award and was
selected to USA Basketball's 2023 Women's AmeriCup Team in June.
Entering the 2023-24 season, Hsu ranks No. 2 among active NCAA Div. I player in 3-pointers made per game (3.06) and No. 3 in total treys (285). She has 1,515 career points in three seasons, 177 assists and 114 steals, averaging 16.3 points per game, 41.7 percent from the field and 38.4 percent from the perimeter. Her 1,515 points rank second in program history behind all-time Columbia basketball scoring leader Camille Zimmerman '18CC, who scored 1,973, the most of any men's or women's player in school history.
The previous winners of the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award are
Ciara Duffy, South Dakota State (2020),
Kierstan Bell, FGCU (2021, 2022) and most recently
Sam Breen, Massachusetts (2023).
2024 Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award Watch List*
Starr Jacobs, Arkansas Pine-Bluff
Caitlin Weimar, Boston U.
Destiny Leo, Cleveland State
McKenna Hofschild, Colorado State
Abbey Hsu, Columbia
Katie Dinnebier, Drake
Megan McConnell, Duquesne
Antwainette Walker, Eastern Kentucky
Yvonne Ejim, Gonzaga
Brynna Maxwell, Gonzaga
Kaylynne Truong, Gonzaga
Savannah Wheeler, MTSU
Katelyn Young, Murray State
Diamond Johnson, Norfolk State
Kacie Borowicz, North Dakota
Kaitlyn Chen, Princeton
Ny'Ceara Pryor, Sacred Heart
Grace Larkins, South Dakota
Quinesha Lockett, Toledo
Maya McDermott, UNI
Desi-Rae Young, UNLV
Sammie Puisis, USF
Breaunna Gillen, Utah Tech
Jordyn Jenkins, UTSA
Allyson Fertig, Wyoming
*Players can play their way onto and off the list at any point in the 2023-24 season
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