Cooper On Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Midseason Watch List

The U.S. Basketball Writers Association has selected 50 standout women’s college basketball players for its 2024-25 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Midseason Watch List, and Tennessee’s Talaysia Cooper is one of them.

Members of the association’s board of directors chose the players for consideration for the National Player of the Year. All Division I players remain eligible for the award.

Cooper, a 6-0 redshirt sophomore guard, paces No. 19 Tennessee at 17.5 points per game and also leads the team in rebounding (5.9 rpg.), steals (3.2 spg.) and blocks (0.9), and is second in assists (3.3 apg.). She is shooting 46.8 percent from the field and 30.4 percent on threes, and she is fourth on the team in three-pointers made with 24. 

The native of Turbeville, S.C., has scored in double figures in 18 of 21 games thus far, including 10 games with 20-plus points. She has scored 10 or more points in a quarter on 10 occasions this season, most recently doing so twice on Sunday at Missouri (14 in the first and 10 in the third) en route to a personal SEC high of 27 points vs. the Tigers. She tied a career high with five three-pointers made vs. Mizzou.

Defensively, Cooper has been a menace to opposing teams, racking up 70 steals to rank 13th nationally and while standing ninth in steals per game at 3.20. Against Oklahoma on Jan. 5, she racked nine steals, tying for the third-most in a game in program history.

Earlier this season, Cooper was named the Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Week and the SEC Player of the Week on Nov. 19. She earned those honors after logging a career-best 33 points vs. Liberty and carding her first career double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds vs. Middle Tennessee.

The Ann Meyers Drysdale Award winner is to be announced at the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Tampa, from April 4-6. The formal presentation of the trophy will follow at the annual USBWA Awards Luncheon hosted by the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis.

The Ann Meyers Drysdale Award is presented annually to the women’s national player of the year by the USBWA. Named for the legendary UCLA guard, the award was first presented in the 1987-88 season and formally named in Meyers Drysdale’s honor in the 2011-12 season. Ann Meyers Drysdale played at UCLA from 1974-78, which pre-dates the USBWA All-America selections. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.

 

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