Big South Announces 2020-21 Women's Basketball Preseason Honors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – High Point junior guard Skyler Curran (Clemmons, N.C.) has been voted the 2020-21 Big South Conference Women’s Basketball Preseason Player of the Year by the league’s head coaches, it was announced this morning.
Curran was a First-Team All-Big South selection in 2019-20 after scoring 16.9 points per game with 6.5 rebounds, 50 assists and 25 steals for the Panthers. She ranked third in the Big South in scoring and was 10th in rebounding -- one of just two players to rank in the Top 10 in both categories, and was also among the league leaders in field goal percentage (8th – 41.8), three-point proficiency (9th – 33.1) and three-pointers per game (2nd – 2.7). A four-time Big South Player of the Week honoree in 2019-20, Curran recorded five double-doubles -- three of which were 20-point, 10-rebound efforts, including a 28-point, 10-rebound performance at UNC Greensboro on Dec. 21. She dropped in a career-high 31 points at N.C. Central on Nov. 24, and grabbed a season-high 13 rebounds against Presbyterian on Jan. 21. In league contests last season, Curran averaged 16.5 points (4th in the conference), 7.1 boards (9th) and made 36.4 percent from behind the three-point arc (third) while averaging 2.6 treys per Big South game (2nd). She received five first-place votes and 91 points in the voting to earn the top spot on the preseason All-Conference team.
2020-21 Big South Conference Women’s Basketball Preseason All-Conference Team
First-Team
Skyler Curran, High Point, Jr., G (Clemmons, N.C.)
Laren VanArsdale, Hampton, Jr., G (Powder Springs, Ga.)
Kyla McMakin, Longwood, Soph., G (Virginia Beach, Va.)
Nylah Young, Hampton, Soph., F (Suffolk, Va.)
Nadiria Evans, UNC Asheville, Sr., G (Gainesville, Fla.)
Second-Team
Trinity Johnson, Presbyterian College, Jr., G (Hopkins, S.C.)
Taya Bolden, Campbell, R-Sr., F (Richmond, Va.)
Shy Tuelle, Campbell, Jr., G (Hampton, Tenn.)
Luana Serranho, Campbell, Jr., G (Lisbon, Portugal)
Amele Ngwafang, Radford, Jr., F (Silver Spring, Md.)
VanArsdale earned First-Team All-Big South honors in 2019-20, as she averaged a team-high 15.2 points along with 3.4 assists per contest. She scored a season-high 31 points against Longwood on Feb. 15, had seven 20-point games and seven games with at least six assists. VanArsdale was the 2018-19 Big South Freshman of the Year and is a two-time All-Conference honoree.
McMakin was last season’s Freshman of the Year in addition to earning First-Team All-Conference accolades after leading the conference in scoring with 18.8 points per game. She scored 20+ points 11 times and surpassed 30 points twice. McMakin, who was named to the Her Hoop Stats National Fab 15 Freshman Team, was second in the Big South in free throw percentage (80.4) and seventh in steals (2.4).
Young earned a spot on the Big South’s All-Freshman Team in 2019-20 as she averaged 12.7 points and a team-high 7.1 rebounds. She ranked 11th in the league in scoring and seventh in rebounding, and was a three-time Big South Freshman of the Week honoree. Young started 27 of 29 games for the Lady Pirates and scored a season-high 30 points against Longwood on Jan. 28.
Evans paced the Bulldogs with 14.3 points, 157 field goals made, 102 free throws made and 38 steals last season en route to Big South Honorable Mention All-Conference honors. She reached 20 points in a game seven times and finished eighth in the league in scoring, while her field goal percentage of 43.4 ranked third. Evans started all 30 games for Asheville last season and averaged 15.0 points against league foes.
The Preseason All-Conference Second-Team features two returning All-Conference players from 2019-20 in Johnson (Honorable Mention) and Serranho (Honorable Mention), as well as the league’s top two returning rebounders in Ngwafang (8.1) and Bolden (8.0), plus a former All-Freshman Team member in Tuelle.