Nawahine named WCC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — The West Coast Conference has named BYU graduate student Malia Nawahine its Women’s Basketball Player of the Week for Jan. 8, 2018. The honor is the first for Nawahine and for BYU this season.

Nawahine, a 5-foot-10 guard from Springville, Utah and a University of Utah transfer, guided the Cougars to back-to-back West Coast Conference wins this week.

She scored 25 points vs. Pacific two days after her 23 points against San Francisco broke her previous career best.  In the win over the Tigers, Nawahine scored 11 first-quarter points, helping the Cougars take the early 21-11 lead. The 25 points came in 33 minutes of playing time. The transfer also recorded a new career-high in rebounds, with nine. She shot 9 of 15 from the field and was perfect from the charity stripe going 5 of 5 while dishing out three assists and recording two steals.

The 25 points against Pacific were also game-highs, giving her two back-to-back 20-plus scoring performances for the week.

Against San Francisco, she tallied game highs in points with 23, along with seven rebounds, two assists and two steals. Nawahine went 4 of 7 from behind the arc against the Dons and was 7 of 16 from the field.

For the week, Nawahine totaled 48 points, grabbed 16 rebounds, dished out five assists and had four steals. She averaged 24.0 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. Nawahine shot 51.6 percent from the field, 42.9 from behind the arc and 76.9 from the free-throw line.