BSU's Kate Endress Named MAC Women's Basketball Player Of The Year
March 8, 2005
Complete Release in PDF Format
![]()
![]()
Download Free Acrobat Reader
CLEVELAND -- Ball State's Kate Endress and Bowling Green's Curt Miller have earned the Mid-American Conference's top honors for the 2004-05 women's basketball season, the league announced Tuesday evening at the conference's annual Tournament Banquet at the Hyatt Regency at the Arcade. Endress has been named the league's Player of the Year, while Miller has garnered the league's Coach of the Year award for the first time in his career. In addition, Buffalo's Heather Turner has been tabbed as the MAC Freshman of the Year. The league's 13 head coaches and members of the MAC News Media Association conducted the voting.
The conference's other two specialty awards, the Defensive Player of the Year and the Sixth Man of the Year awards, are voted on by the league's head coaches. Capturing the Defensive Player of the Year honor is Kent State's Malika Willoughby, while Ohio's Simone Redd is tabbed the winner of the Sixth Man of the Year.
Endress is the third different Cardinal to garner the league's top honor for a player, joining Jenny Eckert (1990) and Tamara Bowie (2001 and 2003). The two-time first-team all-MAC selection averaged a league-high 18.2 points per game during the regular season and was also 13th in rebounds (6.5). The Evansville, Ind., native also tops the chart in three-point field goal percentage and is second with 68 three-pointers. Four times Endress was tabbed the West Division Player of the Week, including the final week of the season for her career-high 30 points against Central Michigan March 1. In league-only play, Endress led all scorers with a 20.4 ppg average, while her 6.9 rpg ranked 11th. She tallied 20 or more points 12 different times, including a 25-point outing against Akron in the first round of the Kraft MAC Women's Tournament this past Saturday. That game she also became only the 12th player in MAC women's history to score 1,800 points in their career (1,823 points entering Wednesday's quarterfinals) and is one of only 11 with 200-plus three-pointers (203).
Bowling Green's Miller earns his first-ever Coach of the Year honor after directing the Falcons to their first-ever divisional crown and the program's first MAC Championship since the 1993-94 campaign. The fourth-year head coach guided BGSU to a 13-3 league mark and a 20-7 mark during the regular season, giving the school back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since the 1992-93 and 93-94 campaigns. Picked to finish third in the league's preseason MAC News Media Association Poll, Bowling Green won the program's sixth MAC regular season title -- the second most in conference history.
Buffalo's Turner is the second Bull to win one of the league's postseason awards, joining Sonia Ortega, who won MAC Defensive Player honors in 2001. She finished her rookie campaign finishing in the top-20 in scoring, averaging 11.1 points a game. She connected on a league-best 57 percent of her shots from the field and pulled down 7.7 rebounds per game, sixth-best in the conference. Turner, from West Seneca, N.Y., led UB in scoring nine times and 15 times in rebounding, while tallying a team-high six double-doubles.
In its ninth year of existence, the MAC's Defensive Player of the Year goes to Kent State's Willoughby. The Milwaukee, Wis., native finished second in the MAC in steals per game (2.9) and is a part of a team that has limited opponents to a league-low 55.8 ppg, which is also a MAC record. She recorded five or more steals in four games, including a season-best eight steals against Georgetown. Willoughby is the second KSU player to win the award, joining Dawn Zerman who garnered the award three consecutive seasons (1998-2000).
Ohio's Redd is the third recipient of the MAC's Sixth Man of the Year award. The freshman from Warrensville Heights, Ohio, led the team with a 11.2 points-per-game average. The guard came off the bench in 10 of the Bobcats' 16 league contests to averaged a team-best 12.2 ppg, tops among all first year players and 17th overall in the conference. Redd, who also averaged 3.5 rpg in 28 overall games, was ninth in the conference in field goal percentage (.468) in league-only games. Redd, who is the second first-year player in as many seasons to win the award, is the first Bobcat player to win one of the league's specialty awards since Caroline Mast won her third of three straight MAC Player of the Year awards in 1986.
Specialty Award Top-Three Finishers
Player of the Year
Kate Endress, Ball State 25
Ryan Coleman, Eastern Michigan 20
Sikeetha Shepard-Hall, Marshall 5
Coach of the Year
Curt Miller, Bowling Green 39
Royce Chadwick, Marshall 14
Suzy Merchant, Eastern Michigan 4
Freshman of the Year
Heather Turner, Buffalo 26
Kate Achter, Bowling Green 20
Julie DeMuth, Ball State 7
Simone Redd, Ohio 7
Defensive Player of the Year
(voted on by the MAC head coaches)
Malika Willoughby, Kent State
Sixth Man of the Year
(voted on by the MAC head coaches)
Simone Redd, Ohio
A total of 61 ballots were received from members of the
MAC News Media Association and the MAC's head coaches.
