Jan. 11, 2011
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame sophomore guard Skylar Diggins (South Bend, Ind./Washington) is among a group of 20 women’s basketball players who have been chosen as midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award, it was announced Tuesday by the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The Wooden Award, which is presented annually to the nation’s top player, compiled its midseason candidates based upon individual performance and team results, with the current list of student-athletes comprising the frontrunners for this year’s award.
Diggins presently ranks second on the team in scoring at 13.4 points per game, while leading the squad in assists (4.5 rpg.) and adding 3.5 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game with a 1.33 assist/turnover ratio. She also ranks sixth in the BIG EAST Conference in assists, having registered at least five assists in 10 of Notre Dame’s 17 contests this season, paced by an eight-assist effort against Morehead State on Nov. 15, after posting seven five-assist games during her entire rookie year.
What’s more, Diggins has chalked up 13 double-figure scoring games this season, including two 20-point outings, topped by a season-high 22 points against 15th-ranked UCLA on Nov. 18. Diggins also collected her second career double-double at the State Farm Holiday Hoops Classic on Dec. 29 against Gonzaga, scoring 19 points and pulling down a career-high 11 rebounds in a 70-61 Fighting Irish victory. She is coming off a strong all-around performance last Saturday afternoon against No. 2 Connecticut, scoring 16 points while adding five assists and four rebounds in the near-victory over the Huskies (79-76).
A consensus preseason All-America selection and candidate for every major national player of the year award, Diggins was named to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll on Dec. 6 after averaging 17.5 points, 5.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game with a .484 field goal percentage in games against second-ranked Baylor and Purdue.
Diggins is one of three BIG EAST players on the Wooden Award Midseason Top 20 List, joined by Connecticut’s Maya Moore and Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers. Diggins also is one of just three sophomores on the Wooden Award candidate rundown, along with Rodgers and Baylor’s Brittney Griner.
Diggins and her Notre Dame teammates are back in action at 7 p.m. (ET) Wednesday when the No. 12 Fighting Irish (13-4, 2-1) play host to Louisville at Purcell Pavilion — tickets are still on sale through Notre Dame’s Murnane Family Ticket Office, open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (ET) weekdays at Gate 9 of Purcell Pavilion and by phone at (574) 631-7356, or through the official Notre Dame athletics ticketing web site (www.UND.com/tickets). The game can be heard live on the radio in the Michiana area on Pulse FM (96.9/92.1), and it will be webcast worldwide on the Internet at www.UND.com.
For more information on the Notre Dame women’s basketball program, sign up to follow the Fighting Irish women’s basketball Twitter pages (www.twitter.com/ndwbbsid or www.twitter.com/notredamewbb) or register for the Irish ALERT text-messaging system through the sidebar on the women’s basketball page at UND.com.
— ND —