Kathleen Doyle Named Big Ten Player of the Year

As the regular season comes to an end for the basketball programs at Iowa, both teams are looking forward to the post-season and both teams have favorable opportunities to make some noise and win some games.

Before that though, with the success of each team, perhaps even more than was expected from them, it is conference award season and both programs have numerous potential award winners.

Today the Big Ten announced the women’s basketball all-conference teams. The unanimous Player of the Year from both the coaches and the media was Hawkeye senior guard, Kathleen Doyle. This marks the second straight season that a Hawkeye has taken the top honor as Doyle follows Megan Gustafson who won the award last year.

Doyle has had a strong senior season. She is averaging 18.2 points per game, which was enough for fourth in the conference. Doyle also finished tied for eighth in the conference with a .446 shooting percentage which is a great accomplishment for a guard.

Doyle is found all over other conference stat lists. She was third in free throw percentage at 79.1%, tops in assists at 6.4 per game, a full assist higher than the second place finisher. Steals? Sure Doyle can do that as well as she tied for tenth in the conference with 50 steals.

Joining Doyle on the Media’s First Team is sophomore post player Monika Czinano. She was named to the second team by the coaches. Also named to the second team by both the coaches and media was senior guard Makenzie Meyer. Meyer also was Iowa’s recipient of the Sportsmanship Award. Finally, freshman McKenna Warnock earned an All-Freshman Team award from the coaches.

Iowa begins play in the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday in Indianapolis as they secured the third seed in the tourney with their 14-4 conference record. They will most likely match up against Ohio State who they defeated 77-68 at home this season.