5 best performances by Player of the Year candidates in women’s college basketball, ranked

These were the best outings of the season by Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins and the other Player of the Year contenders in women’s basketball.

The regular season is over and March is here. The NCAA Tournament is just around the corner and so is award season in women’s college basketball.

All year long, players have wowed us with neck-breaking highlights, record-book worthy performances and eye-popping stats. We’ve seen contenders for the national Player of the Year award step up in big moments, like when USC’s JuJu Watkins fueled her team’s victory over UCLA in the regular season finale to capture the Big Ten regular season title. We’ve seen some players who have been consistently great all year long, like LSU’s double-double machine in Aneesah Morrow. And we’ve seen players really up their game in certain areas, like Notre Dame’s Olivia Miles bouncing back from a severe knee injury and turning into an excellent 3-point shooter.

Before March Madness arrives, let’s revisit the best performances of the season by the top contenders for the national player of the year:

Aneesah Morrow, LSU

For LSU, Morrow’s best performance of the year came in its most recent win: a victory over Florida in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina. The senior forward scored a season-high 36 points for the short-handed Tigers – they were playing without star guard Flau’Jae Johnson – and she also grabbed 14 rebounds, and had two assists and three steals. Morrow has flown under the radar this season a bit, but she’s one of the best players in the country, full stop.

Paige Bueckers, UConn

With a solid supporting cast around her in Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd, Kaitlyn Chen and others, Bueckers hasn’t always stuffed the stat sheet this season, but she has been simply awesome in a few games this season. One of them was a non-conference win in November in the Greensboro Coliseum over North Carolina, in which the fifth-year guard piled up 29 points, four rebounds and four assists in a win for the Huskies in the Tar Heel State. Her performance included this impressive buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first quarter:

Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame

One of the most electric players in the country, Hidalgo has turned heads all season with her ability to pick off passes, smooth handle, lightning speed and sharp shooting. There’s a few games you could pick from when choosing Hidalgo’s best performance of the season, but few were better than her outing against a marquee opponent Dec. 12, when the Irish defeated rival UConn. Hidalgo tallied 29 points, a season-high-tying 10 rebounds, a season-high-tying eight assists and five steals.

Lauren Betts, UCLA

Betts has been steady all season long for the Bruins, but her best game came on the road in mid-January in a win over the Maryland Terrapins. Betts shot a near-perfect 14-of-15 from the floor to score a career-best 33 points to go along with seven rebounds, four assists and four blocks. UCLA won comfortably, 82-67, and the 6-foot-7 Betts was a big reason why.

JuJu Watkins, USC

It’s easy to make the case that Watkins’ first game of the season against rival UCLA was the best outing of her sophomore campaign. At that point, heading into Feb. 13, the Bruins hadn’t lost a game all season. And then Lauren Betts and co. walked into the Galen Center and found themselves with an inability to contain Watkins. She poured in 38 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and a career-best eight blocks. Watkins took the game over, dictated the pace and made a huge impact on both ends of the floor – all things she’s done often this season.