Weisner Named Player of the Year
February 29, 2016 | Women's Basketball
CORVALLIS – The Pac-12 women's basketball coaches have voted Oregon State senior Jamie Weisner the Pac-12 Player of the Year, the conference office announced Monday evening. The guard is the first Oregon State player to earn the honor since Felicia Ragland in 2001. Joining Weisner in the conference honors is fellow senior Ruth Hamblin, who was selected as Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, receiving the award for the second consecutive season. Hamblin was also tabbed as the Pac-12's Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Weisner and Hamblin were joined by junior Sydney Wiese on the Pac-12 First Team for the second-straight season. Junior Gabriella Hanson was named Pac-12 Defensive Honorable Mention, while Katie McWilliams was named a Freshman Honorable Mention.
In addition to the All-Conference awards, former Oregon State standout Carol Menken was named to the Pac-12 Networks All-Century Team, also released Monday night.
The Pac-12 Media Awards will be released on a later date.
Weisner has been one of the top offensive threats in the conference throughout her four-year career. The senior is averaging 17.0 points per game this season, the fourth-best total in the conference, and leads all Pac-12 guards in field goal percentage at 47.8 percent. The Kinesiology major is also shooting 43.0 percent from 3-point range and 87.7 percent from the free-throw line, making her one of the most efficient players in the country. Weisner became the seventh player in Oregon State history to surpass 1,500 points earlier this season, and is currently 42nd in Pac-12 history with 1,630 career points. Possibly most impressively, the guard from Clarkston Washington has played her best in the big games, scoring 12 of her 18 points in the fourth-quarter of the Beavers' comeback at Stanford, and putting up 25 points against both Arizona State and UCLA.
Hamblin, the 2014-15 Pac-12 Media Player of the Year, will go down as one of the best defensive players in the history of the Pac-12. The senior sits just eight blocks short of the conference's all-time career record, and has recorded at least one block in 27-straight games. On the offensive end, Hamblin is averaging 11.4 points and 9.0 rebounds per game this season, and became the 20th player in Oregon State history to pass the 1,000-point mark earlier this season. She played one of her best games of the season on Sunday, finishing with 11 points, 19 rebounds and six blocks. Off the floor, Hamblin has been selected Academic All-District three-straight years, holding a GPA of 3.85 as a Mechanical Engineering major. She is also a finalist for this year's Senior CLASS Award.
Wiese's All-Pac-12 honor is the third of her collegiate career, as she joins Tanja Kostic (four times) and Felicia Ragland as the only Beavers to make three All-Pac-12 teams. Wiese, a Pre-Communication Major, became the fourth-fastest player in Oregon State history to reach the 1,000-point mark earlier this season, and has already cracked the top-10 in Pac-12 history for career 3-pointers. She currently sits sixth in the nation in career 3-point percentage, and has filled the stat-sheet throughout the season, averaging six rebounds and 4.9 assists per game.
Hanson has stepped into the starting lineup this season as the Beavers' lock-down defender. She leads the team with 35 steals, taking on the opponent's toughest defensive matchup in most games. McWilliams has played important minutes for Oregon State, and guided the team to a 9-2 record in 11 starts in the absence of Wiese.
Oregon State's first All-American, Carol Menken, earned three letters for the Beavers from 1979-81. A native of Jefferson, Oregon, Menken transferred to OSU after playing one season at Linn-Benton Community College. She was named Kodak All-America after guiding her team to a 22-6 record her senior season when she led the nation in field goal shooting with an incredible .750 percentage. She is second all-time at OSU for scoring (2,243) and rebounding (901), first in field goal percentage (.692), and leads in per game averages for both scoring (27.7) and rebounding (12.5), after playing just 81 games. Menken also holds the school mark for single game scoring, with 51 points against Alaska-Anchorage in the 1979-80 season.
The Beavers locked down a share of the Pac-12 title with their win over California on Sunday, repeating as conference champions. Oregon State (25-4, 16-2 Pac-12) is currently ranked No. 8 in the AP Poll and were tabbed at No. 6 in Monday's NCAA Selection Committee's Top-10.
Oregon State is the No. 1 seed in this week's Pac-12 Tournament, and will face the winner of USC vs. Washington State Friday at 6 p.m. at Key Arena in Seattle.
