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Oklahoma's Madi Williams Tabbed to Naismith Midseason Watch List

The Sooners' high-scoring, ultra-efficient senior forward, can become just the fourth player in school history to be a finalist for college basketball's top individual prize.
John E. Hoover|
Oklahoma's Madi Williams Tabbed to Naismith Midseason Watch List
Oklahoma's Madi Williams Tabbed to Naismith Midseason Watch List

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Oklahoma Sooners

By OU Media Relations

Oklahoma redshirt senior Madi Williams was selected as one of 30 players named to the Naismith Women's Player of the Year Midseason Team, it was revealed on Tuesday by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.

Williams, also a top-10 candidate for the Cheryl Miller Small Forward Award, is the only player in Division I to average 26.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per 40 minutes this season. 

Leading the No. 16 Sooners with 16.5 points per game, the Fort Worth, TX, product also averages 6.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. Williams is one of the most efficient players in the country, as she is the nation's only player to post 16.5 points with 6.0 rebounds in under 25 minutes per contest. If those numbers hold, she would become the first Big 12 player since at least 2009 with that efficiency.

The first Sooner ever to post 2,000 career points, 900 rebounds and 300 assists, Williams is a two-time unanimous All-Big 12 first team selection. She ranks in the school's all-time top 10 in points, games played, rebounds, double-doubles and more. 

In addition, she was a finalist for the Cheryl Miller Award last season and has been on the watch list for both the Wooden and Naismith Player of the Year awards in 2022 and 2023. A projected first-round pick in the latest WNBA Mock Draft from The Athletic, Williams has cemented her legacy as one of the best to ever play at Oklahoma.

If named a finalist for the award, Williams would join LaNeisha Caufield (2002), Stacey Dales (2002) and Courtney Paris (2006-09) and the Sooners' fourth finalist for the nation's top individual prize. No Sooner has ever won the award.

OU is 18-4 this season and 8-3 in Big 12 play, one game behind Texas for the Big 12 Conference lead. Oklahoma tips off Tuesday at Baylor at 7 p.m.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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