Big East WBB Awards: Plouffe And Pumroy Earn Conference Honors

Yesterday the Big East announced the all conference teams along with some individual awards. Marquette's Katherine Plouffe was named to the All-Big East second team, while Brooklyn Pumroy was named to the All-Freshman team.

Plouffe has been honored by the Big East each of her three years at Marquette, earning All-Freshman team honors and Honorable Mention honors last year. Pumroy's award is slightly bittersweet, as she may not have gotten enough playing time to earn a spot on the All-Freshman team had starting point guard Gabi Minix not gone down with an ACL tear after Marquette's first game of the season.

Pumroy and Plouffe take their fancy new honors into tonight's first round game in the Big East tournament. As a result of losing a tiebreaker with Rutgers, Marquette ended up as the 10 seed in the bracket and will play last place Pittsburgh as their opening opponent. Tipoff will be at 5pm Central/20 minutes after the conclusion of the Seton Hall/Cincinnati game. You can stream the game live on BigEast.tv.

The Panthers went winless in Big East play this season, including a 74-65 home loss to Marquette back in January. Pitt hasn't won a game at all since January 2nd, when they squeaked out a 1 point win at Old Dominion. On the other side of things, Marquette is looking to firm up their chances at a WNIT spot, and can not afford to lose this game.

We made some predictions on who would be honored by the conference, so let's see what happened!

All Big East First Team:

Stefanie Dolson, Connecticut, Jr., C
Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Connecticut, So., F
Brittany Hrynko, DePaul, So., G
Sugar Rodgers, Georgetown, Sr., G
Shoni Schimmel, Louisville, Jr., G
Natalie Achonwa, Notre Dame, Jr., F
Skylar Diggins, Notre Dame, Sr., G
Kayla McBride, Notre Dame, Jr., G
Nadirah McKenith, St. John’s, Sr., G
Shenneika Smith, St. John’s, Sr., G
Andrea Smith, USF, Sr., G
Kayla Alexander, Syracuse, Sr., C

So I missed on Schimmel, McBride, and McKenith, while including Villanova's Laura Sweeney and Cincinnati's Dayeesha Hollins on my list largely because of the number of times they had been on the weekly honor roll. Also, the conference inexplicably named 12 players, up from 11 last year in what is clearly an effort to make me look bad. Or it was because of ties in the voting.

Defensive Player of the Year went to Connecticut's Kelly Faris. I had selected Sugar Rodgers, but Tim Fontenault of The Daily Campus pointed out that would probably go to Faris. Homer or not, I tip my cap to him for getting that one right.

Today the Big East announced the major individual awards, so let's see how our predictions for those shook out!

Player Of The Year: Skylar Diggins, Notre Dame. I believe I had that one.

Freshman Of The Year: Jewell Loyd, Notre Dame. She did win Freshman Of The Week more than anyone else, so that's not surprising. Still had that one wrong, though.

Coach Of The Year: Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame. I predicted this wrong, but I also predicted that I would get it wrong! I say I get half credit.