OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Senior
Lizzy Wendell (Blue Springs, Mo.) of the Drake University women's basketball team has been selected to the 2016-17 NCAA® Division I women's basketball Senior CLASS Award All-America First Team.
Joining Wendell on the first team is Sydney Wiese of Oregon State (award winner), Kelsey Plum of Washington, Leticia Romero of Florida State and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough of Maryland.
This is the third postseason award for Wendell, who earlier this week earned AP All-America Honorable Mention accolades and last week was selected as an All-Region nominee for the 2017 WBCA NCAA Division I Coaches' All-America team.
In her final season, Wendell, who was named the 2017 Jackie Stiles Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, averaged a league-leading 21.0 points and ranked among the top six in the MVC in assists (3.0, 5th), free throw percentage (74.3, 6th), shooting percentage (49.8, 5th) and steals (2.7, 2nd). Wendell's scoring average ranks 13th in the nation, and she is the first MVC player to lead the league in scoring in three-straight seasons since Jackie Stiles of Missouri State led the league four straight seasons from 1998-2001. She scored 692 points this past season, a total that ranks ninth all-time in Drake and MVC single-season history.
Wendell helped Drake tie a program record for single season wins with a 28-5 record in 2016-17. The Bulldogs finished 18-0 in league play to win the regular season title and then claimed the MVC Tournament title with three wins in three days. The tournament title gave the Bulldogs an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament, its first NCAA appearance since 2007.
Wendell scored 2,551 career points, which is the third most in Drake and MVC history and third among active NCAA Division I players. She is just the fourth Bulldog and eighth MVC player to score 2,000 or more points. Wendell was selected to the All-MVC First Team all four years of her outstanding career, a feat that has been accomplished by just six others in MVC history. She was tabbed MVC Player of the Week a league-high five times this season and 14 times in her career, a total that is second all-time in Valley history behind Stiles.
Wendell's 19.8 career scoring clip ranks third all-time at Drake and sixth all-time in MVC history. She had the longest double figure scoring streak in MVC history at 102-consecutive games and scored in double figures in 124-of-129 career games. Wendell leads active MVC players in career 20-plus point scoring games with 66 and 30-plus point games with 11, including two 43-point career-high performances.
In her freshman season, Wendell won a program-record eight MVC Newcomer of the Week awards and was named the MVC Freshman of the Year. She nabbed 268 career steals to rank second all-time at Drake, her career scoring clip of 19.8 points per game ranks third all-time at Drake and she made 230 three-pointers to rank fourth all-time at Drake.
Wendell was one of twenty NCAA® men's and women's basketball student-athletes who excelled both on and off the court and were selected as finalists for the prestigious award back in January. To be eligible for the award and All-America teams, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School ®, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
The finalists were chosen by national media from the list of 30 men's candidates and 30 women's candidates announced in January. Nationwide fan voting helped select the winner and fan votes were combined with those of the media and Division I head coaches to determine the winner and All-America teams.
For more information on each of the finalists, visit
seniorCLASSaward.com.
Women's Basketball 2016-17 Winner
First Team
Second Team
