Atunrase Earns Big 12 Player Of The Week Honors
Jan 29, 2007 | Women's Basketball
January 29, 2007
Texas A&M junior All-American candidate Morenike Atunrase (Shreveport, La.) earned Big 12 Conference Player of the Week honors Monday for league games played from Jan. 22-28.
The 5-foot-10 combination guard/forward led the No. 20-ranked Aggies to a 2-0 week with back-to-back victories over top 25 opponents in No. 25 Nebraska (66-65) on Jan. 24 and No. 6 Oklahoma (54-52) on Jan. 27. It marked the first time in school history for the Aggies to record back-to-back victories against top 25 competition. A&M?™s upset of sixth-ranked OU snapped a 24-game Big 12 winning streak by the Sooners and gave the Aggies their first win in Norman since 1990 and first since the league?™s inception. It marked the biggest victory in school history and the highest-ever ranked opponent to fall to A&M.
For the week, Atunrase averaged a team-leading 18.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 2.5 steals per game against the Huskers and Sooners combined. She made 40 percent of her shots from the floor and 45 percent of her shots from beyond the arc including two of the team?™s eight three-pointers versus OU. Atunrase also went 8-of-10 from the charity stripe and averaged 29.0 minutes on the court. Her 19 points against Nebraska, a personal season-best this year in league play, marked the most points scored in a single game since fracturing her left foot at Rice on Dec. 1, 2006. Atunrase had missed five games of the season with a foot fracture and returned to the lineup in the Big 12 opener at Kansas State on Jan. 6. She scored a game-high 18 points in the upset of sixth-ranked Oklahoma and filled up the right side of the stat sheet with five rebounds, three blocks and three steals.
Atunrase is on the verge of becoming Texas A&M?™s all-time leading shot blocker with 136 career blocks to date. She needs two more blocks to surpass former A&M standout Kelly Cerny (137) in the school record books. An All-Big 12 First Team performer and preseason candidate for the prestigious John R. Wooden and Naismith Trophy Awards, Atunrase moved into second all-time with her three blocked shots at OU. She is 26 points shy of recording her 1,000th career point and would become only the 18th player all-time to reach the milestone in school history. Atunrase would also become the first 1,000-point scorer since Toccara Williams did so during her senior campaign in 2003-04.
The weekly honor is the second this season by an Aggie as sophomore Takia Starks (Houston, Texas) was named Big 12 Player of the Week on Jan. 15. It marks the first time in school history in which A&M has had two of its own honored as player of the week during the same season since the league?™s formation in 1996-97. This is the fifth career weekly award for Atunrase who previously earned Player of the Week honors on Jan. 16, 2006. She also garnered Big 12 Rookie of the Week honors three times during her freshman campaign in 2004-05.
Thirteen-Straight For Aggies?...Texas A&M climbed three spots to No. 18 in this week?™s Associated Press Top 25 Poll released Monday. A&M has appeared in the national polls for a school-record 13-straight weeks since the preseason polls came out on Nov. 1 and 8. The school record for consecutive weeks in the AP Top 25 Poll was previously 12 which occurred during the 1994-95 campaign under former head coach Candi Harvey. A&M also appeared in the AP Poll for seven-straight weeks in 1995-96.
