# West Coast Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year

The West Coast Conference (WCC) Women's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the most outstanding women's basketball player in the West Coast Conference. The award has been given ever since the conference first sponsored women's basketball in the 1985–86 season, when it was known as the West Coast Athletic Conference. There have been two ties in the history of the award. The first was in 2006–07 between Stephanie Hawk of Gonzaga and Amanda Rego of Santa Clara (coincidentally, players from the same two schools were involved in a tie for the WCC Men's Player of the Year Award that season). The second was in 2020–21, when BYU's Shaylee Gonzales and Gonzaga's Jenn Wirth shared honors. There have also been a total of four repeat winners, but only one—Courtney Vandersloot of Gonzaga—has been Player of the Year three times.
No one WCC school has dominated the total awards distribution over time. The overall leader is Gonzaga, with 12 awards; BYU is next with seven, while Saint Mary's and Santa Clara have five each. Of these schools, all but BYU, which joined the WCC in 2011 and left for the Big 12 Conference in 2023, have been WCC members throughout the conference's women's basketball history. Each current WCC member except for Pacific has at least one award. Pacific had been a charter member of what is now the WCC, but left in 1971, long before the conference sponsored women's sports, and did not return until 2013. The only former WCC women's basketball member that failed to produce an award winner was Nevada, which only participated in the conference's first two women's basketball seasons (1985–86 and 1986–87).

## Key

| † | Co-Players of the Year |
| * | Awarded a national Player of the Year award: the Naismith College Player of the Year, the John R. Wooden Award, or Wade Trophy |
| Player (X) | Denotes the number of times the player has received the Player of the Year award |

## Winners

| Season | Player | School | Position | Class |
| 1985–86 | Sonya Carter | U.S. International | | Freshman |
| 1986–87 | Teri Hunt | San Francisco | | Senior |
| 1987–88 | Dorinda Lindstrom | Santa Clara | | Senior |
| 1988–89 | Anja Bordt | Saint Mary's | | Sophomore |
| 1989–90 | Anja Bordt (2) | Saint Mary's | | Junior |
| 1990–91 | Melissa King | Santa Clara | | Sophomore |
| 1991–92 | Martha Sheldon | Portland | | Senior |
| 1992–93 | Melissa King (2) | Santa Clara | | Senior |
| 1993–94 | Christine Silvernall | Santa Clara | | Senior |
| 1994–95 | Amy Claboe | Portland | | Senior |
| 1995–96 | Laura Sale | Portland | | Senior |
| 1996–97 | Deana Lansing | Portland | | Senior |
| 1997–98 | Lisa Sacco | Santa Clara | | Senior |
| 1998–99 | Tracy Morris | Saint Mary's | | Junior |
| 1999–2000 | Rasheeda Clark | Pepperdine | | Junior |
| 2000–01 | Jermisha Dosty | Saint Mary's | | Junior |
| 2001–02 | Jerkisha Dosty | Saint Mary's | | Senior |
| 2002–03 | Tamara McDonald | Pepperdine | | Senior |
| 2003–04 | Kate Murray | Loyola Marymount | | Senior |
| 2004–05 | Shannon Matthews | Gonzaga | | Senior |
| 2005–06 | Michelle Cozad | Santa Clara | | Senior |
| 2006–07$^†$ | Stephanie Hawk | Gonzaga | | Senior |
| 2006–07$^†$ | Amanda Rego | San Diego | | Junior |
| 2007–08 | Heather Bowman | Gonzaga | | Sophomore |
| 2008–09 | Courtney Vandersloot | Gonzaga | PG | Sophomore |
| 2009–10 | Courtney Vandersloot (2) | Gonzaga | PG | Junior |
| 2010–11 | Courtney Vandersloot (3) | Gonzaga | PG | Senior |
| 2011–12 | Kristen Riley | BYU | F | Senior |
| 2012–13 | Taelor Karr | Gonzaga | SG | Senior |
| 2013–14 | Jennifer Hamson | BYU | C | Senior |
| 2014–15 | Morgan Bailey | BYU | F | Senior |
| 2015–16 | Lexi Rydalch | BYU | G | Senior |
| 2016–17 | Cassie Broadhead | BYU | G | Junior |
| 2017–18 | Jill Barta | Gonzaga | F | Junior |
| 2018–19 | Yasmine Robinson-Bacote | Pepperdine | F | Senior |
| 2019–20 | Jill Townsend | Gonzaga | G | Junior |
| 2020–21$^†$ | Shaylee Gonzales | BYU | G | Sophomore |
| 2020–21$^†$ | Jenn Wirth | Gonzaga | F | Senior |
| 2021–22 | Shaylee Gonzales (2) | BYU | G | Sophomore |
| 2022–23 | Kaylynne Truong | Gonzaga | G | Senior |
| 2023–24 | Yvonne Ejim | Gonzaga | F | Senior |
* ↑ Due to COVID-19 disruptions, the NCAA ruled that the 2020–21 season would not count against the eligibility of any basketball player. BYU chose not to change the academic classifications for any of its returning basketball players, including Gonzales, in the 2021–22 season.

## Winners by school

Note: Years of entry for each school are the actual calendar years they joined the WCC and first played women's basketball in the conference. Because the basketball season spans two calendar years, the award years reflect the years in which each season ended. Schools that have left the WCC are highlighted in italics.
| School | Joined WCC as full member | Joined WCC women's basketball | Winners | Years |
| Gonzaga | 1979 | 1987 | 12 | 2005, 2007$^†$, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2018, 2020, 2021$^†$, 2023, 2024 |
| BYU | 2011 | 2011 | 7 | 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021$^†$, 2022 |
| Saint Mary's | 1952 | 1987 | 5 | 1989, 1990, 1999, 2001, 2002 |
| Santa Clara | 1952 | 1985 | 5 | 1991, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2006 |
| Portland | 1976 | 1987 | 4 | 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997 |
| Pepperdine | 1955 | 1985 | 3 | 2000, 2003, 2019 |
| Loyola Marymount | 1955 | 1985 | 1 | 2004 |
| San Diego | 1979 | 1985 | 1 | 2007$^†$ |
| San Francisco | 1952 | 1985 | 1 | 1987 |
| U.S. International | — | 1985 | 1 | 1986 |
| Nevada | — | 1985 | 0 | — |
| Pacific | 1952/2013 | 2013 | 0 | — |

## Footnotes

* ↑ BYU left the WCC after the 2022–23 season to join the Big 12 Conference.
* ↑ U.S. International joined the then-WCAC as an affiliate member in women's basketball when the conference began sponsoring the sport. It left the conference after the 1986–87 season. Within four years of its departure from the WCAC, the school went bankrupt and dropped intercollegiate athletics.
* ↑ The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada), which had left the then-WCAC in 1979 for the Big Sky Conference, rejoined the WCAC as a women's sports affiliate in 1985. The Wolf Pack left after the 1986–87 season for the Mountain West Athletic Conference, a women's-only conference that was absorbed by the Big Sky Conference and is not to be confused with the Wolf Pack's current all-sports home, the Mountain West Conference.
* ↑ The University of the Pacific was a founding member of the California Basketball Association, later the WCAC and now the WCC, in 1952. Pacific left the conference in 1971 to join its football team in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, now the Big West Conference. After dropping football in 1995, Pacific rejoined the WCC in 2013.