The Cheryl Miller Award is an award presented annually to the best women's basketball

small forward The small forward (SF), also known as the three or swingman, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. Small forwards are typically shorter, quicker, and leaner than power forwards and centers but taller, larger, and stronger ...

in the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) Division I competition. It is named after Hall of Famer

Cheryl Miller Cheryl D. Miller (born January 3, 1964) is an American former basketball player. She was formerly a sideline reporter for NBA games on TNT Sports and also works for NBA TV as a reporter and analyst, having worked previously as a sportscaster f ...

. While at Riverside (CA) Polytechnic High School, Miller set a single game scoring record of 105 points in a game in 1982. She was a four-time All-America, a three-time Naismith Player of the Year and a

Wade Trophy The Wade Trophy is an award presented annually to the best upperclass women's basketball player in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I competition. It is named after three–time national champion Delta State University coac ...

winner while accumulating 3,018 career points at USC from 1982 to 1986. Miller is a 1984 Olympic gold medalist and was named the best college basketball player, both male and female, in 1986 by

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

Origin

The Cheryl Miller Award was first presented in 2018, when WBCA and the Naismith Hall, in collaboration with ESPN, incorporated the

Nancy Lieberman Award The Nancy Lieberman Award, named for Basketball Hall of Fame legend Nancy Lieberman, was given annually by the Rotary Club of Detroit in the Award's first 14 years to the nation's top collegiate point guard in women's Division I basketball. Sue Bi ...

, presented since 2000 to the top NCAA women's point guard, into a new set of awards known as the "Naismith Starting Five". All five awards are presented at the WBCA convention (except in 2020, when the convention was not held due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

) to players at each of the five traditional basketball positions. These awards parallel a previously existing set of men's basketball positional awards also presented by the Hall. In addition to the Lieberman Award, the other three new awards are: * Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard Award * Katrina McClain Power Forward Award * Lisa Leslie Center Award

Selection

Winner for each of the Starting Five awards is determined by a selection committee consisting of Hall of Famers, WBCA coaching members, and media, and headed by the award's namesake. Fan voting through the Hall's website is also incorporated into the selection process.

Key

Winners

Winners by school

References

External links

Official website
{{Cheryl Miller Award College basketball player of the year awards in the United States College basketball trophies and awards in the United States College women's basketball in the United States Sports awards honoring women Awards established in 2018 College sports trophies and awards in the United States