Big Ten Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year


The Big Ten Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the Big Ten Conference's most outstanding player. The award was first given following the Big Ten's first full season of women's basketball in 1982–83. The league's head coaches have presented the award since 1983; media members who cover Big Ten women's basketball began presenting their own version of the award in 1996.
Nine players have won the award multiple times. Six players have won twice: Anucha Browne of Northwestern, Tracey Hall of Ohio State, Katie Douglas of Purdue, Kelly Mazzante of Penn State, Maggie Lucas of Penn State, and Megan Gustafson of Iowa. Three players, all from Ohio State, have won more than two awards. Jantel Lavender is the only four-time winner, though only the 2009 and 2010 awards were unanimous. Jessica Davenport is the only player to have been the unanimous winner of three awards. The other three-time winner, Kelsey Mitchell, won the coaches' award in 2015 and 2018 and both awards in 2017.
Three players have won a major national player of the year award in the same season in which they won the Big Ten award. Carol Ann Shudlick of Minnesota won the Wade Trophy along with the Big Ten award in 1994; Stephanie White of Purdue won the same two awards in 1999; and Gustafson won the Big Ten award and Naismith Trophy in 2019.
The coaches and media have split their honors six times in all, with the most recent being 2018, when Mitchell won the coaches' award and Gustafson won the media award.
Ohio State has the record for the most awards with 15, and the most individuals who have won the award, with seven. Of current Big Ten Conference members, four schools have never had a winner: long-established members Indiana and Michigan, and the two schools that joined the conference in 2014, Maryland and Rutgers.

Key

Winners

Winners by school

Footnotes