Women's Basketball | 10/25/2023 7:47:00 PM

Utah Tech fifth-year guard Breaunna Gillen has been named to the 25-player preseason watch list for the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year, presented by Her Hoop Stats. 

Gillen, who was tabbed as the 2023-24 Western Athletic Conference Preseason Player of the Year, is the lone WAC representative on the list, which includes women's basketball student-athletes from 23 teams and 16 conferences overall. 
 
Gillen (5-9; West Jordan, Utah/Copper Hills HS), who was either at or near the top of the WAC scoring list throughout the entire 2022-23 campaign en route to first team all-WAC honors, wound up as the conference's second leading scorer at 17.8 points per game. 
 
The fifth-year guard finished last season as the WAC's leader in assists at 6.45 apg, and finished in the top-10 overall in assist/turnover ratio (2^nd; 1.77), field goal percentage (5^th; .438), and free throw percentage (10^th; .744).

Gillen scored in double figures in all 31 games during the 2022-23 campaign, and in 43-straight games dating back to the 2021-22 campaign, with 12 starts of 20 points or more, including a career-high 26 points in a home win vs. Utah State (11/15).

Six of those 12 20-point outings came in WAC play, including a three-game stretch that saw her score WAC season highs of 24 points against both UTRGV (2/18) and California Baptist (2/25) that bookended a 20-point night at Seattle U (2/23). In that UTRGV win, Gillen became the fifth member of Utah Tech's 1,000-point club, and she enters her final season ranked third all-time in program history in career points (1,112).

Gillen, who is Utah Tech's career assists leader (393), also became just the third player in program history with over 1,000 points and at least 200 assists. In addition, her 200 assists last year eclipsed her previous school record of 156 set last season, while her 552 points were the second-most on Utah Tech's single-season list.

The senior also posted six double-doubles on the year, five of which came with 10 or more assists, and she was named WAC Player of the Week twice (11/14 and 11/21).
 
Utah Tech begins its fourth season of NCAA Division I play on Monday, Nov. 6, with a matinee match-up vs. La Verne inside the Burns Arena at 11 a.m.
 
Award Eligibility & Schedule
To be eligible for this award, players must compete in one of the 26 conferences deemed to be "mid-major." The following conferences are considered high-major for the purposes of this award, and thus ineligible: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC. In January the 15-player midseason watch list will be announced, followed by 10 semifinalists announced in February. The five finalists will be announced in early March, with the winner announced around the Final Four. The list is fluid and players may play their way on or off the list over the course of the season.
 
About Becky Hammon
Hammon was a three-time All-American during her career at Colorado State and led the Rams to the Sweet 16 in 1999, the program's only appearance to date. She was signed by the New York Liberty in 1999 and traded to the San Antonio Stars in 2007, where she played the rest of her career. Hammon retired in 2014 as a six-time All-Star and a two-time All-WNBA First Team honoree. In 2016 she was named one of the top 20 players in WNBA history and was recently named to the W25.
 
Hammon became the second female coach in NBA history when she began coaching for the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. Additionally, Hammon is the only woman to be a head coach in the NBA Summer League as well as the only woman to be a member of an NBA All-Star coaching staff. Currently, Hammon is the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces and won the 2022 and 2023 WNBA Championships.
 
About Her Hoop Stats
Her Hoop Stats was founded in 2017 to unlock better insight about women's basketball at all levels. We began as a statistics site focused on providing consistent, reliable, and easy-to-access data about women's basketball for both mobile and desktop environments. Her Hoop Stats has expanded to become a leading independent voice in the women's game providing content through our newsletter, podcast network, YouTube channel, and social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).