Three Kansas State women’s basketball players earned All-Big 12 honors Tuesday after leading the 16th-ranked Wildcats to a third-place finish in the conference this season.
Senior center Ayoka Lee and junior guard Serena Sundell landed first-team accolades, and senior guard Gabby Gregory was on the honorable mention list. Lee also claimed an all-defensive team nod.
It was the 10th straight season K-State (24-6, 13-5 Big 12) has put at least two players on the All-Big 12 squads.
Lee was a unanimous pick to the first team, the fourth time she’s made that list. She joins Nicole Ohlde and Kendra Wecker as the only four-time All-Big 12 picks in program history. It was also the second time she’s been on the defensive team.
Sundell landed on the first team for the first time in her career, but it’s the third time she’s picked up all-conference honors.
Gregory, who was a first-team selection last season, ended up on the honorable mention team for the second time.
Lee has led the Wildcats with 19.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game — which rank third and sixth in the league, respectively — despite missing seven games with a pair of ankle injuries. She leads the Big 12 and is seventh in the nation with a field-goal percentage of 62%, and she’s second in the conference and seventh in the nation with 2.83 blocks per game.
Sundell’s 160 assists are the top mark in the Big 12, and she’s shot a career-best 53.5% this year en route to an average of 11.9 points per game, making her K-State’s second-leading scorer. In conference games, she has averaged 5.7 assists per game, which is the second-best mark in the Big 12, and her 53.9% shooting in league games ranks fourth in the conference.
After pacing the Wildcats and finishing second in the Big 12 with 18.2 points per game last season, Gregory has averaged 8.9 points per game this year. However, she’s tallied a career-high 104 assists, and her 3.5 assists per game are the 11th-most in the league.
K-State — which finished the regular season with its most wins in the Jeff Mittie era — will play its first game of the Big 12 tournament on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City.
With the No.-3 seed, the Wildcats will have a bye in the first two rounds and will play either No.-14 seed UCF, No.-11 seed Cincinnati or No.-6 seed West Virginia. The Knights and Bearcats will play Thursday, and the winner will play the Mountaineers on Friday.
The victor in that game will play K-State at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
