In the Running
STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford senior point guard Amber Orrange was among 30 women’s basketball players named to the John R. Wooden Award Women’s Preseason Top 30 it was announced Monday.
Orrange is one of five Pac-12 players on the list and joined by California’s Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray as well as Washington’s Kelsey Plum and Oregon’s Jillian Alleyne. The list is comprised of 30 student-athletes who are the early frontrunners for college basketball’s most prestigious honor and is chosen by a preseason poll of national women’s college basketball media members.
The 39th annual Wooden Award ceremony that will honor the Men's and Women's Wooden Award winners takes place the weekend of April 10-12, 2015.
Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award is the most prestigious individual honor in college basketball. Previous winners include such notables as Larry Bird (’79), Michael Jordan (’84), Tim Duncan (’97), Candace Parker (’07 and ’08), Kevin Durant (’09) and Maya Moore of Connecticut (’09 and ‘11). Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike won the 2014 Wooden Award.
Through three games this season, Orrange is filling up the stat sheet, averaging 14.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists. Last Monday night, she made a go-ahead jumper with 1:38 left in overtime and the tying 3-pointer with 1.4 seconds remaining in regulation to send Stanford to an 88-86 upset of No. 1 UConn and end the Huskies’ 47-game winning streak.
With 439 career assists, Orrange sits just behind a number of Stanford legends and is aiming to become the seventh Cardinal to reach the 500-assist plateau, joining Sonja Henning (757), Jennifer Azzi (751), Milena Flores (644), Jamila Wideman (585), Nicole Powell (577) and Jeanette Pohlen (560). She’s also on track to crack Stanford’s career top 10 lists for both games and minutes played.
Orrange is ninth in the nation among active players in assists and currently ninth in Stanford history. The senior captain also has 992 points in 113 career games and is just eight away from becoming Stanford’s 35th 1,000-point scorer. She was named to the five-person preseason All-Pac-12 Team in late October.
One of the most dynamic guards in the country, Orrange started all 37 games a season ago, averaging 10.3 points and 4.49 assists per game while shooting 47.5 percent from the field. An All-Pac-12 selection by both the league’s coaches and its media, she was named to the Nancy Lieberman Award Watch List and earned both Pac-12 All-Defensive Honorable Mention and Pac-12 All-Academic Honorable Mention accolades.
The science, technology and society major improved her played in the NCAA Tournament, averaging 13.0 points and 4.60 assists while shooting 51.0 percent over the Cardinal’s final five games.
Stanford has its first road test of 2014-15 when it plays New Mexico in The Pit tonight at 6 p.m. PT/7 p.m. MT. The Cardinal has won five straight road openers and has not lost back-to-back games since Dec. 2010.
The game will be streamed online by the Mountain West Network and also be broadcast on KZSU 90.1FM with Ashley Westhem at the mic. A live audio stream can also be heard on kzsulive.stanford.edu. Live stats will be available on GoStanford.com and fans can follow @StanfordWBB on Twitter for all game day information, including score updates, photos and observations.