Senior guard Charel Allen is among the top 20 midseason candidates for this year's John R. Wooden Women's Award, it was announced late Wednesday.

Charel Allen Among Top 20 Midseason Candidates For John R. Wooden Women's Award

Jan. 31, 2008

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – For the second consecutive day, Notre Dame senior All-America guard Charel Allen (Monessen, Pa./Monessen) was tapped as a midseason candidate for a national player of the year award. On Wednesday, Allen was one of the top 20 players named to the John R. Wooden Women’s Award midseason candidates list, as announced by the Wooden Women’s Award Selection Committee. It followed on the heels of her selection Tuesday as one of the top 31 players in the running for the Naismith Trophy, which also goes to the nation’s top collegiate women’s basketball player.

Allen currently leads the team and ranks 15th in the BIG EAST Conference in scoring (14.1 ppg.), ninth in free throw percentage (.809) and 12th in steals (1.95 spg.). During league play, she is tied for 12th in the BIG EAST in scoring (14.9 ppg.), tied for sixth in steals (2.29 spg.) and 13th in free throw percentage (.795). Allen also has scored in double figures 18 times in 21 games this season, including 16 of her last 17 contests, and scored a season-high 26 points in Notre Dame’s BIG EAST opener at Louisville on Jan. 8 (an 82-74 Irish win). She was named to the Preseason WNIT All-Tournament Team back in November and earned a place on the Jan. 7 BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll.

Besides the Wooden Women’s Award and the Naismith Trophy, Allen remains in contention for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) State Farm Wade Trophy, having made that award’s preseason watch list back in August.

As was the case with the Naismith Trophy, the BIG EAST led all conferences with six players on this year’s Wooden Women’s Award midseason candidate list. Other league players to be chosen include: Tina Charles and Maya Moore (Connecticut); Matee Ajavon (Rutgers); Angel McCoughtry (Louisville) and Marcedes Walker (Pittsburgh). No other conference in the country placed more than four players on the midseason candidate list for the Wooden Women’s Award, which was won last year by Tennessee’s Candace Parker.

Composed of the top 20 players who will compete for this season’s player of the year award, the midseason list is based on individual player performance and team records during the first half of the season. Players who do not make the midseason list are still eligible for consideration for the Wooden Award. In March, the Women’s National Advisory Board will release the names of the players selected to the official voting ballot. The ballot consists of approximately 15 players who have proven to their universities that they are making progress toward graduation and are maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA. More than 300 voters, comprised of sports media members and women’s college basketball experts from across the nation, will cast their votes for the five-member All-American team and Wooden Award honor as the most outstanding female collegiate basketball player in the nation.

Allen and the 20th-ranked Irish (16-5, 4-3 BIG EAST) are back in action Saturday when they travel to Cincinnati for a 3 p.m. (ET) BIG EAST contest at Fifth Third Arena. Notre Dame then goes on an eight-day break before returning home to face No. 14/19 Pittsburgh Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. (ET) at the Joyce Center. Tickets for that matchup, and all remaining Notre Dame women’s basketball home games, may still be purchased by contacting the Notre Dame Athletics Ticket Office (574-631-7356), visiting the tickets section of the official Irish athletics web site or stopping by the Joyce Center Gate 10 ticket windows on game day.

— ND —