2021/22 NBL Awards week: Division One Women

We've reached the penultimate day of our week of NBL awards, moving onto Division One Women.

Monday saw the announcement of Division Three's winners, with WNBL Division Two on Tuesday and NBL Division Two yesterday.

Today we turn our attention to the winners from the top level of the WNBL pyramid, Division One.

All week long we've been recognise the best and brightest from this season's NBL and WNBL competitions, with our last remaining awards for D1M coming tomorrow. All awards will be announced from 2pm onwards.

Wilson Player of the Year

The Wilson WNBL Division One Player of the Year award goes to Cardiff Met Archers II's Amber Deane.

In just their second season in D1W, Deane helped to push the Welsh side to a 13-9 record, good for sixth place and a spot in the playoffs.

The American forward was incredible from a statistical perspective, finishing the season second in efficiency, third in points (19.2PPG), fifth in rebounds (9.5RPG), first in assists (5.1APG), first in steals (5.1SPG) and sixth in blocks (0.8BPG).

Deane's undoubted highlight for the season came back in February when she pulled off a truly stunning quadruple-double in the 81-67 victory against London Lions II, finishing with 14 points plus 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals.

Wilson Coach of the Year

For the second season in a row, CoLA Southwark Pride's Jackson Gibbons is the league's Wilson Coach of the Year.

After taking CoLA to a first D1W league title since 2015/16 and their only since the top tier became a singular rather than regionally split league, Gibbons time and again got the best from his roster to compile a 20-2 record.

The London play caller has also overseen the rise of a number of young players who have developed across the campaign, including multiple-award winner Isi-Ozzy Momodu, plus Molly Lavin, Emily O'Connell, Funmi Amode and more.

The award is Gibbons' fourth in total, after collecting this accolade in 2020/21, 2016/17 and 2015/16.

Team of the Year

With Player of the Year Amber Deane automatically taking up a spot in the league's Team of the Year, the Cardiff forward is joined by the next four highest vote getters to round out a starting five.

Isi Ozzy-Momodu has been one of the standout players this season for table-topping CoLA Southwark Pride, and her defensive prowess, league third-highest efficiency and splits of 11.7PPG, 11,2RPG, 1.7SPG and 1.4BPG were more than enough to see her selected.

Former playoff final MVP Katrin Hulme also makes the cut, with the ARU forward topping the league's efficiency charts whilst recording a 15.8PPG and 14.1RPG double-double.

Thames Valley's Katherine Goldsby helped the Cavs to a third place finish this year, their best ever position, with the American averaging 17.1PPG plus an impressive 4.0SPG.

Loughborough's Alia El Shabrawy made a splash in her debut WNBL season to round out the five, with the talented guard putting together a 12.4PPG, 7.3RPG, 3.8APG split.

British Team of the Year

With Hulme and Ozzy-Momodu both retaining their places from the league's Team of the Year, three players swap in to make up the British Team of the Year.

Amber Deane departs for Cardiff teammate Issy Bunyan, with the young forward wowing coaches across the league with her versatile 13.9PPG, 6.9RPG, 3.0APG stat line. Averaging in the top ten for steals (2.9SPG) and leading the way for blocks (2.6BPG) also demonstrated her defensive prowess.

Ipswich forward Taylor-Willis is included, with last year's league and playoff winner putting up 13.3PPG and 11.5RPG across 22 outings this season.

The final spot goes to CoLA's Emily O'Connell for her part in the Pride's successes. She ranked sixth in the league this season for 3PT%, and her sharpshooting helped her to 9.0PPG along with 2.1SPG.

Defensive Player of the Year

After earning recognition in both the Team of the Year and British Team of the Year, it's no surprise to see Isi Ozzy-Momodu's name once again as the D1W Defensive Player of the Year.

The CoLA standout was a menace in the paint and an integral to her side averaging a league-best 49.7PPG allowed this season.

That clip is nearly nine points better than the next closest team, showing just how good the London side were on D.

With 6.6 defensive rebounds per game, plus 1.7SPG and 1.4BPG, the 6'2" forward made her mark this season and amazingly, is continuing to get better.

Young (U19) Player of the Year

It's pretty much a clean sweep for Ozzy-Momodu as she also claims the Young (U19) Player of the Year award as well.

Excelling on defence and a constant force on offence, it's no surprise to see the 18-year-old recognised once again by D1W's coaches.

Best Live Stream

Team Solent Kestrels fans have been able to enjoy some great action all season long in person.

But if they've been watching online they will have also had the finest experience the division has to offer, voted Best Live Stream across the league for 2021/22.

Process

As with the awards from previous seasons, each head coach from across the division was invited to nominate a selection of their own players that they considered in the running for each accolade.

Each shortlist was then compiled centrally and sent back to the club's involved, and each head coach was given three votes to allocate across this year's shortlist (with teams unable to vote for their own players).

A first place vote was worth three points, a second place vote was worth two points, and a third place vote was worth one point, and the recipient with the highest number of points was the winner.

For Player of the Year, Team of the Year and British Team of the Year, coaches were given five votes to distribute rather than just three.

Senior Playoff Finals

Today's awards continue the week of NBL and WNBL end of season honours in the lead up to this weekend's senior playoff finals at the National Basketball Performance Centre in Manchester.

To purchase tickets for the event, please click the button below. Coverage of the event will be available through our NBL social channels, as will the remaining awards from the rest of this week.

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