Four Jayhawks Earn All-Big 12 Accolades
IRVING, Texas – The 2015 regular season has concluded and four Jayhawks were awarded All-Big 12 honors for their efforts throughout the season. Four honorees for Kansas women’s basketball marks the most since 2000 when KU have five all-conference selections.
Senior forward Chelsea Gardner was selected to the All-Big 12 First Team, while rookie guard Lauren Aldridge earned a spot on the All-Big 12 Freshman Team. Senior guards Asia Boyd and Natalie Knight were named All-Big 12 Honorable Mention.
A two-time first team honoree, Gardner led the team with 16.8 points, which is the third-best scoring average in the league. Defensively, Gardner grabbed 8.5 blocks per game and swatted away 2.4 blocks per game. She posted nine double-doubles this season and totaled 27 double-digit scoring efforts. The De Soto, Texas native recorded the fifth-best shooting percentage at 52.6. Gardner joined Kansas’ 1,000-point scorers club in the first game of the 2014-15 season and is just the fourth Jayhawk to amass over 1,400 points and 850 rebounds.
In her first season with the Jayhawks, Aldridge started every contest and leads the team in minutes played with 1,083, good for 34.9 minutes per game. She has played every minute of Kansas’ last four games. Aldridge averaged 8.0 points per game and finished 13 contests with 10 or more points. One of only two starting freshmen point guards in the conference, Aldridge dished out 5.0 assists per game, the third-best mark in the league. She has tallied five or more assists in 10 of her last 13 outings.
Boyd, a native of Detroit, Michigan, earned her first career All-Big 12 honor to cap off her senior season. Boyd averaged 10.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game before a foot injury sidelined her from the final three games of 2014-15 regular season. She posted one double-double this year and four in her KU career. Boyd is second on the roster in three-point field goal percentage connecting on 35.1 percent of her shots from behind the arc.
During her senior campaign, Knight collected her second-straight honorable mention accolade. Knight averaged 12.5 points, which is the second-best average on the squad. She has the third-best three-point field goal percentage after making 37.9 percent of her shots from beyond the arc. She posted two double-doubles this season, the first of her career against Arkansas State (12/14). Knight became the 28th Jayhawk to score over 1,000-career points after netting 11 points against Texas (2/14).
Kansas faces Kansas State in the first round of the Big 12 Championship on Friday, March 6 at 6 p.m., inside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. The game will air on FOX College Sports and the Jayhawk Radio Network.
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