Let the madness begin. March is in full swing and with it is the madness. The Men’s Tournament tipped off yesterday and the women’s tournament begins in full today. More people are watching the game than ever. With 68 teams there is tons of talent and plenty of players to watch out for in this year’s Women’s NCAA Tournament. This is some of those players, and ones that are lesser known to the masses than the stars. More specifically these are players on teams that are double-digit seeds.
You can read about players to watch from double-digit seeded teams in the Men’s Tournament here.
Players To Watch In The Women’s NCAA Tournament
Brooklyn Meyer
South Dakota State’s Brooklyn Meyer is one of my favorite players to watch. Last year as a freshman she played in every game, but only played 12.5 minutes per game. This year she became a full-time starter and was incredible. She won the Summit League’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards, plus multiple All-Conference honors. Meyer averages 17 points, 7.7 rebounds, & 1.9 blocks per game for the Jackrabbits. Those averages rank 3rd, 2nd, and 1st in the Summit League overall. She has 24 more blocks than any other player in the conference does. She shoots 59.1% from the field. The craziest part is that, as I’ve already mentioned, she’s just a sophomore. And this was her first year getting significant playing time. Meyer is a player to watch this year in the tournament and into the future. It’s also worth noting that she is not the only really good player on this Jackrabbits team.
Savannah Wheeler & Anastasiia Boldyreva
Middle Tennessee State has a tremendous center/point guard duo in Anastasiia Boldyreva and Savannah Wheeler. Boldyreva is a towering 6’6″ junior from Russia. Her playing time doubled this season and she had a breakout year. She averages 14.8 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks per game. Those numbers rank 5th, 4th, and 1st in Conference USA. She has 18 more blocks than any other player in the conference, and only Liberty’s Bella Smuda was within 53 (!!) of her. All of that won Boldyreva C-USA’s Defensive Player of the Year award and All-Conference honors. Wheeler is a foot shorter than her teammate but the super senior makes up for it with immense talent. She got even better again this season and won conference Player of the Year because of it. She was great in the conference tournament, which earned her Tourney MVP. Wheeler leads the conference in points and assists (17.3 and 5.1 per game respectively) and is 15th in rebounds (4.4 per game). The two could make some noise for the Lady Blue Raiders.
Emani Jefferson
Emani Jefferson transferred to Florida Gulf Coast from Memphis and simply tore up the A-Sun. She is 3rd in the conference in scoring average at 16.1 points per game and is 5th in assists per game with 3.8. Jefferson had a breakout year (once she was finally declared eligible) and posted new career-highs in most categories. She has been excellent on both sides of the ball. Jefferson won A-Sun Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. With her at the helm the Eagles have a real chance to win 30 games for the third straight season and potentially make it to the second weekend of the tournament for the first time.
Meghan Andersen
Fairfield’s Meghan Andersen had about as good of a true freshman season as you can have. She averaged 15.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, as well as shooting 36.2% from three and 66.1% from inside the arc. Just an absurdly good stat line for a true freshman forward. She leads the Stags in scoring and is a really close second in rebounding. No one on the team has a better shooting percentage from inside the arc than she does. It goes without saying that Andersen won the MAAC Rookie of the Year award as well as earned all-conference honors. She is not just a player to watch in this year’s tournament but in the next few seasons as well.
