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On Monday, the Big East released the weekly women's basketball awards, and Marquette freshman guard Allazia Blockton swept both of the individual awards. She was named Freshman of the Week for the seventh time this season, and she was named Player of the Week for the first time this season.
With six previous FOW awards and four weekly Honor Roll appearances on top of that, it seemed pretty obvious that Blockton was going to be the Freshman of the Year this season. Yes, there's Georgetown's Dionna White over there with five Freshman of the Week awards, but her candidacy is pretty much ended by the Big East's press release for Blockton's awards this week.
And I quote:
Blockton has a BIG EAST-best 10 double-doubles so far while her 13 20-point games and 10 double-digit rebounding performances are also tops in the conference.
I knew that Blockton was the only player in the Big East that was top five in both points (3rd, 18.6 ppg) and rebounds (4th, 7.7 rpg) per game this season. I did not know that she was crushing people in double-doubles this season. I did not know that she has more 20+ point games than anyone else. I did not know that she has more 10+ rebounding games than anyone else.
I know Marquette's 8-7. You don't often see someone that low on the standings win Player of the Year. I get that. But they have two very winnable games this coming weekend against Providence and Creighton, and that would clinch a record over .500 for them. League leader DePaul has already clinched a share of the title and the #1 seed in the Big East tournament, but they have three different players leading the team in points, rebounds, and assists. Maybe they can't get an obvious singular candidate. Seton Hall's Tabatha Richardson-Smith is leading the league in scoring, but the Pirates are just 8-6 right now, and it's not like that's significantly better than the Golden Eagles.
Allazia Blockton is already Marquette's freshman scoring champ. She's on target to break the Big East's freshman scoring record, which has stood for over 20 years. She's making a run at one of the five best scoring seasons in Marquette history.
Is Allazia Blockton the best player in the Big East this season? We'll have to wait and see for sure, but it certainly looks like it to me.