High Point graduate guard Lauren Bevis and head coach Chelsea Banbury have been voted the 2023-24 Big South Conference Women’s Basketball Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively, by the league’s head coaches, it was announced Tuesday afternoon by the conference office.
The panel voted USC Upstate guard Trinity Johnson as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year and Gardner-Webb guard Anaya Harris as Freshman of the Year, while Runnin’ Bulldogs guard Ashley Hawkins was selected as Newcomer of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year as voted by the league’s Sports Information Directors.
Bevis becomes the sixth Panther to receive Big South Player of the Year honors and the third in the last five years. A three-time Big South Player of the Week honoree this season, she leads the conference with a 16.6 scoring average, 71 3-pointers made and a 90.3 percent free throw percentage, the ninth-best clip in the nation. The Spartanburg, S.C. native leads the league in 3-pointers per game (2.54) and 3-point percentage, and she ranks second in overall field goal percentage (43.1 percent). In 16 Big South contests this season, Bevis paced the conference with 18.1 points per game while shooting 43.6 percent from distance and averaging 2.6 triples per game. She also made 92.1 percent from the charity stripe (70-76) and 48.1 percent from the field (89-185), the first and second-best marks in the league, respectively.
The back-to-back first-team selection tied for the most 20-plus point games in the conference this season with eight, including a league-high 32-point performance on the road at Gardner-Webb on Jan. 6. Bevis received seven first-place votes and 118 total points from the panel, ahead of Radford’s Ashlyn Traylor-Walker (103 points).
Banbury earns her second Big South Coach of the Year honor and becomes the second High Point coach in program history to win the award multiple times. The fifth-year head coach led the Panthers to the outright Big South regular-season championship with a 14-2 record, including 10-straight wins to close the conference campaign. Named to the 2024 Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award Watch List before the season, Banbury improved her coaching record to 91-59 all-time (60.7 percent) at High Point and 71-21 against conference opponents (77.1 percent), the top winning percentage amongst active Big South coaches.
HPU was the top scoring offense in the league this season averaging 63.0 points, while the Panthers also paced the Big South in field goal percentage (40.8 percent), assists/turnover ratio (0.77), turnover margin (+1.03), turnovers per game (15.3) and bench points per game (24.4). Banbury received six first-place votes and 22 points overall, ahead of USC Upstate’s Jason Williams (14 points, two first-place votes) and Charleston Southern’s Clarisse White (10 points, one first-place vote).
Johnson becomes the first Spartan to earn Defensive Player of the Year honors in program history. The Hopkins, S.C. native ranked second in the Big South in steals with an average of 2.2 per game while adding 3.3 defensive boards and helping USC Upstate post the league’s best defensive field goal percentage (37.2 percent) as well as a strong 29.3 percent defensive three-point percentage.
Johnson also finished second in the conference averaging 4.7 assists while climbing to 2.5 steals per tilt in conference games. She earned one Big South Player of the Week award in 2023-24, and also became the third player in Big South history to eclipse 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists for her career. Johnson received six first-place votes and 22 points overall, ahead of Longwood’s Kiki McIntyre (eight points, one first-place vote).
Harris becomes the second Runnin’ Bulldog to earn Freshman of the Year honors, and the second in the last four seasons. The Raleigh, N.C. native won Big South Freshman of the Week accolades three times in her first campaign in Boiling Springs, tied for second-most in the league, including twice in the final four weeks of play. She averaged 7.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game and tallied eight double-digit performances on the year, including three in a row to end the regular season. Harris received six first-place votes and 36 points overall, ahead of Radford’s Joi Williams (25 points, two first-place votes) and Terissa Lavoile-Brice (23 points).
Hawkins is the first Big South Women’s Basketball Newcomer of the Year, which recognizes the top non-freshman transfer playing in the Big South for the first time. She is also the second Runnin’ Bulldog to ever earn Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the first since 2011-12. A junior guard from Long Beach, Calif., Hawkins ranked third in scoring in conference games (15.7) and first in total assists (102) and assists per game (6.4). Her 5.7 assists per game for the full season ranks 17th nationally, while she also led the conference in assist/turnover ratio (1.33) as well as minutes per game (33.6). She was named Big South Player of the Week once this season and was the only player in the conference to post double-digit assists in the same game, doing so on two occasions. She capped off the season with two double-doubles and 24 double-digit scoring performances. Hawkins received seven first-place votes for Newcomer of the Year (21 points), ahead of Radford’s Taniya Hanner (13 points, one first-place vote) and USC Upstate’s Isabell West (nine points, one first-place votes).
The entire 2023-24 All-Conference team is as follows:
2023-24 Women’s Basketball All-Conference
First-Team All-Conference
Lauren Bevis, High Point
Ashlyn Traylor-Walker, Radford
Trinity Johnson, USC Upstate
Kennedi Jackson, Charleston Southern
Ashley Hawkins, Gardner-Webb
Second-Team All-Conference
Bryanna Brady, Presbyterian
Catherine Alben, Charleston Southern
McKinley Brooks-Sumpter, UNC Asheville
Tilda Sjökvist, Presbyterian
Nakyah Terrell, High Point
Honorable Mention All-Conference
Isabell West, USC Upstate
Taniya Hanner, Radford
Jada Ryce, Winthrop
Marissa Gasaway, Winthrop
Janay Turner, Longwood
All-Freshman Team
Anaya Harris, Gardner-Webb
Joi Williams, Radford
Terissa Lavoile-Brice, Radford
Lauren Bailey, Gardner-Webb
Otaifo Esenabhalu, Longwood
All-Academic Team
Jordan Berry, Charleston Southern
Ashley Hawkins, Gardner-Webb
Callie Scheier, High Point
Bailey Williams, Longwood
Tilda Sjökvist, Presbyterian
Olivia Wagner, Radford
Millie Brown, UNC Asheville
Jeni Levine, USC Upstate
Jada Ryce, Winthrop
Big South Conference
