March 14, 2006
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame senior guard Megan Duffy (Dayton, Ohio/Chaminade-Julienne) is one of 48 NCAA Division I women’s basketball players who have been chosen as finalists for the 2006 Kodak/Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) All-America Team, it was announced Tuesday by the WBCA and the Eastman Kodak Company. Duffy is a finalist for the second consecutive season and becomes the fifth Irish women’s basketball player ever to be a two-time Kodak/WBCA All-America Team finalist, joining Katryna Gaither (1996, 1997), Beth Morgan (1996, 1997), Ruth Riley (1999, 2000, 2001) and Jacqueline Batteast (2002, 2004, 2005) in that elite group.
The 48 finalists for the Kodak/WBCA All-America Team were voted upon by WBCA member coaches in each of the eight WBCA geographical regions. Duffy was joined on the Region I squad by Candice Dupree (Temple), Cappie Pondexter (Rutgers), Khara Smith (DePaul), Ann Strother (Connecticut) and Barbara Turner (Connecticut). The 10-member Division I Kodak/WBCA All-America Team will be announced at a press conference on Saturday, April 1 at 9:45 a.m. (ET) inside the Westin Copley Place in Boston, site of this years NCAA Women’s Final Four. Duffy now is positioned to be the third Kodak/WBCA All-America selection in school history along with Riley (2001) and Batteast (2005).
Duffy ranks among the top 10 in the BIG EAST Conference in scoring (7th – 15.7 ppg.), assists (8th – 4.10 apg.), steals (7th – 2.03 spg.), free throw percentage (1st – .888), three-pointers made per game (6th – 1.90) and assist/turnover ratio (9th – 1.68). She also is 11th in the nation in free throw percentage (as of March 13), marking the second consecutive year she is among the top 15 nationally in that category, and her .888 mark is just shy of her own single-season school record (.895) that she set in 2004-05. In addition, Duffy has scored in double figures 25 times in 29 games this season, including each of the past 14 games, the longest such streak by a Notre Dame player in a single season since Riley had 22 consecutive double-digit scoring games during the Irish national championship campaign of 2000-01.
Duffy ranks among the top 10 in school history in 11 career categories, most notably free throw percentage (2nd – .859), where she is 15th in NCAA history. She also is 13th in the Irish record books with 1,275 career points, and has started 93 of the past 94 Notre Dame games, including a current streak of 66 in a row, dating back to the start of the 2003-04 season.
As one would expect, Duffy’s trophy case has quickly filled up this year. She is the 2006 Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award recipient, honoring the nation’s top senior player standing 5-foot-8 or under, and she is a prime candidate for both the Nancy Lieberman Award (top point guard in the nation) and Senior CLASS Award (athletic and academic success), as well as three other national player-of-the-year awards — the State Farm/WBCA Wade Trophy, Naismith Trophy and John R. Wooden Women’s Award. She also was a unanimous first-team all-BIG EAST pick (her second consecutive first-team citation), the BIG EAST/Aeropostale Scholar-Athlete of the Year, a two-time BIG EAST Player of the Week (Jan. 23 and Feb. 27) and a three-time BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll choice.
Off the court, Duffy has been named an ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA first-team Academic All-American, becoming the second Irish women’s basketball player and eighth BIG EAST Conference female cager ever to be so honored. Duffy currently holds a 3.555 cumulative grade-point average in the College of Arts and Letters, where she is pursuing a double major in psychology and computer applications. She has earned Dean’s List honors in each of the past four semesters, including a 3.917 GPA in the spring 2005 term and a 3.821 GPA in the recently-completed fall 2005 semester.
Winners in four of its last five games, Notre Dame (18-11) will take on Boston College (19-11) Sunday at 7 p.m. (ET) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.
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