Arizona’s Aari McDonald wins award for nation’s top shooting guard

Arizona Wildcats junior Aari McDonald was named on Monday as the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award recipient, honoring her as the top shooting guard in the country.

She is the first Pac-12 player to win the award since its inception in 2018, and the first player in school history to win one of the five women’s positional awards given out by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

McDonald adds an award to her trophy case after already earning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and All-Pac-12 honors, among other nods.

In her junior season this year, McDonald played 29 games and averaged 20.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 31.8 minutes for the Wildcats. She also has the longest active streak in the country of games with double-digit points, with 66 in a row.

The award’s namesake, Drysdale, played at UCLA and was named to the All-America team four years in a row.

Of the other Naismith awards for women’s college basketball positions, three were from Oregon, making for four of the five honors being Pac-12 recipients. The Ducks’ Sabrina Ionescu, Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard won the awards for point guard, small forward and power forward, respectively. South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston won the award for centers.

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