Ka-Deidre Simmons Named to Naismith Trophy Midseason 30
2/11/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Naismith Award Midseason 30 List
ATLANTA, GA. - Seton Hall University graduate point guard Ka-Deidre Simmons (Newark, N.J.) was named to the Naismith Trophy Women's Midseason 30 list presented by AT&T, Wednesday it was announced by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. The prestigious award honors the women's college player of the year.
It is the second time in as many weeks Simmons has been named to a national watch list for a significant postseason award, as she was named to the Nancy Lieberman Award Watch List last Friday, which recognizes the top point guard in NCAA Division I.
The Naismith Award watch list will be trimmed to 10 semifinalists on March 6, then four finalists on March 22. The 2015 Naismith Trophy winner will be announced on Sunday, April 5.
She is one of two players from the BIG EAST Conference to make the Midseason 30 list, with Brittany Hrynko of DePaul University being the other. The two will go head-to-head this Friday night in Chicago with first place in the league standings on the line.
Simmons has been garnering quite a bit of national recognition for her role in helping lead the Pirates to a 21-3 overall record and a 10-2 mark in the BIG EAST. The BIG EAST Player of the Year candidate ranks second at Seton Hall and fifth in the conference in scoring at 17.3 points per game, and leads the league and is 24th nationally averaging 5.5 assists per game.
She is steadily climbing the all-time ranks at Seton Hall in several statistical categories. Her 1,555-career points rank sixth all-time, and she is just four points shy of moving past SHU Hall of Famer Jodi Brooks (1990-94) for fifth-place all-time.
With five assists against Creighton on Sunday, Simmons reached 500 for her career, just the second Pirate in program history to do so, and is now just 34 assists shy of breaking Kathy O'Reilly's (1985-89) program record of 533.
Simmons also ranks fourth all-time with 235 steals and is Seton Hall's all-time leader in made free throws with 461.
Simmons has scored in double figures in 22 of Seton Hall's 24 games this season, including all 12 conference contests. She has been named the BIG EAST Player of the Week three times, including back-to-back honors on Jan. 12, and Jan. 19, and she has landed on the last two conference Weekly Honor Roll lists.
Her best performances of the year have come against some of Seton Hall's toughest competition. In a 107-87 win over DePaul on Jan. 18, Simmons matched her career-high of 28 points and dished out 11 assists as the Pirates set a school single-game scoring record. At West Virginia in the Preseason WNIT, Simmons scored 26 points with 10 assists.
Seton Hall is 21-3 overall, and sits just a half game back of DePaul in the league standings with a 10-2 mark in conference play. Seton Hall is averaging what would equate to a program record 75.6 points per game and has its fewest losses through this point of the season since 1993-94.
Seton Hall returns to action this Friday night, when it heads to DePaul University for a critical conference showdown on the BIG EAST Digital Network. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. (ET).
