Marquette’s Jordan King Included On Cheryl Miller Award Watch List

Waaaaaaaaay back on October 18th, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame released their preseason watch list for the Cheryl Miller Award. The award is given yearly to the woman determined to be the best small forward in women’s college basketball. We’re talking about this because Marquette’s Jordan King is one of the 20 women on the watch list.

Right now, you’re probably saying one of two things, possibly one right after the other.

1. “Hey, that’s neat that Marquette has a player included as one of the 20 best in the sport!”
2. “Wait, they think Jordan King is a small forward?

Yep!

Marquette lists Jordan King as a guard, Marquette has always listed Jordan King as a guard. Jordan King has averaged at least 3.2 assists per game in each of her four previous seasons at Marquette, and over 4.0 per game in each of the last three. There’s a very real argument that she is Marquette’s point guard, backed up by the fact that she led the team in assists last season. And the season before that, too. Her first two years? Second on the team in assists in both campaigns, trailing only Selena Lott each time. You could make an argument that she was MU’s shooting guard at that juncture, and with Rose Nkumu out there with King last season, you could easily argue that she was the shooting guard if you were assigning names to things.

At no point have I ever thought that King was playing the 3 in the lineup for the Golden Eagles.

But that’s where the Hall of Fame has her slotted. I suspect that this might be a situation of “we have way too many guards to fit into 40 spots for the Nancy Lieberman and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards, but not enough small forwards for the Cheryl Miller Award, let’s just scoot some guards over,” but that’s just a guess. I’ve also never considered UConn’s Azzi Fudd to be a small forward, but she’s on this list with King. They’re both joined by fellow Husky Caroline Ducharme.

The watch list for the Miller Award is just that: A list. Players can go on and off the tracking for the award as the season goes a long. Maybe King ends up on one of the lists for guards by the end of the season, who knows? There is a fan voting component to the whole thing, so be sure to swing by HoopHallAwards.com to cast your vote for King and whoever else strikes your fancy.