Minnesota’s Rachel Banham has been named the Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year, capping off a record-shattering final season for the Gophers. She is Minnesota’s third recipient of the award, joining swimming and diving’s Gretchen Hegener (1997) and hockey’s Amanda Kessel (2013).
The Lakeville native is the conference’s all-time leading scorer with 3,093 career points. She was named Big Ten Player of the Year after a historic senior campaign that saw her rewrite the record books and capture national attention.
Banham was second in the nation in scoring, averaging a school-record 28.6 points per game, and she upped her scoring pace to a conference-record 30.5 points during Big Ten play. An NCAA record–tying 60-point performance at Northwestern was just one of Banham’s three games scoring 40-plus this season, as she added 52 at Michigan State and 48 in the WNIT against Milwaukee.
Minnesota’s game (60), season (914), and career (3,093) scoring records all belong to Banham. She also holds all the three-point records with 10 in a game, 119 in a season, and 354 in her career.
Michigan State basketball's Denzel Valentine was the recipient of the Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year Award.
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