Cal's Jayda Curry, Pac-12's Top Scorer, Not on 15-Player All-Conference Team

Bears standout freshman was not named the Pac-12 women's basketball freshman of the year either

The women's basketball all-Pac-12 team announced Tuesday includes 15 players, but the conference's leading scorer, Cal's Jayda Curry, is not among them.  

Hard to believe. In fact it has never happened before.  The conference (Pac-12/Pac-10) has been naming women's all-conference teams every year since the 1986-87 season, and the conference's leading scorer was named to the all-conference first team every year. And in most of those seasons the first-team all-conference team consisted of only five or 10 players, not 15 like this season.

What is also hard to believe is that the Pac-12's leading scorer, freshman Curry, was not named Pac-12 freshman of the year, losing out to a player who is averaging seven points a game fewer.

The all-conference team and the freshman of the year award were based on voting by the 12 conference coaches. And apparently the fact that Cal finished near the bottom of the conference standings negatively impacted the postseason awards for Curry.

---The media have Curry on their all-Pac-12 team---

She led the Pac-12 in scoring by a comfortable margin at 18.73 points per games, but Curry was not among the 15 players named all-Pac-12, and she also lost out on conference freshman of the year to Utah's Gianna Kneepkens, who averaged 11.67 points for Utah this season.

Curry and Kneepkens were named freshman of the week five times apiece, and Utah finished with a 17-10 overall record and 8-7 in the conference compared with Cal's 11-12 overall mark and 2-10 in the conference. Utah is likely to get an NCAA tournament berth.

Interestingly Utah and Cal face each other in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament on Wednesday at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Curry received only honorable mention in the all-conference voting as did Cal teammate Leilani McIntosh, and Curry was named to the all-freshman team.

Stanford's Haley Jones was named the Pac-12 player of the year. No quarrel there.

Here are the comparative numbers of the 5-foot-6 Curry and the 5-foot-11 Kneepkens:

Curry: 18.73 points per game, 38.9 field goal percentage, 34.3 three-point percentage, 3.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 steals.

Kneepkens: 11.67 points per game, 43.7 field goal percentage, 36.8 three-point percentage, 4.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 0.7 steals.

Women's all-Pac-12 team:

Women's all-freshman Pac-12 team

Cover photo of Jayda Curry by Kelley L. Cox, KLC Fotos

.

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

Find Cal Sports Report on Facebook by searching: @si.calsportsreport or going to https://www.facebook.com/si.calsportsreport