BATON ROUGE – LSU’s Khayla Pointer picked up her third All-American honor of the year Thursday morning, being named to the USBWA All-America Third Team.
On Wednesday Pointer earned a spot on the AP All-America Second Team and last week she was on the Sports Illustrated All-America Second Team. She is LSU’s first All-American since LaSondra Barrett who was on the WBCA All-America Honorable Mention in 2012.
Playing her final season in Baton Rouge, Pointer has had her best year of her career. In addition to all her individual accolades, the Tigers have had great team success. Finishing the regular season with 25 wins, LSU finished No. 2 in the SEC and are entering the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 seed. The Tigers will host Jackson State in the PMAC on Saturday at 4 p.m. CT for their first-round matchup.
Pointer has been one of the top guards in the country as a finalist for the Nancy Lieberman Point Guard Award, on the National Ballot for the Wooden Award and the watchlists for the Dawn Staley Award and Wade Trophy. She was also named First Team All-SEC last week. The Marietta, Georgia native will go down as one of the best players in program history. Earlier this season she became the first players in LSU men’s or women’s history to put up 1,500 points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds in a career. She is also one of just five players in SEC history with multiple career triple-doubles, both coming this season, and she has dished out the second most assists in program history.
Averaging 19.0 points (No. 2 in SEC), 6.5 rebounds (No. 18 in SEC) and 5.2 assists (No. 2 in SEC), Pointer is on pace to set new career marks in each of those categories. She has scored 20+ points in 15 games and had a stretch of 16 straight games scoring in double figures. Pointer became the first LSU player since Seimone Augustus to score 35 points during the Tigers’ game at Florida. Including her two triple-doubles, Pointer has seven total double-doubles this year.
Starting all 30 games, Pointer’s durability has been elite. She has played every minute of 13 games, including all 45 minutes of LSU’s overtime game against Missouri when she hit the game-winning layup with 5.7 second remaining. Pointer leads the SEC averaging 36.9 minutes per game.
USBWA All-America Team
First Team
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
NaLyssa Smith, Baylor
Naz Hillmon, Michigan
Rhyne Howard, Kentucky
Second Team
Ayoka Lee, Kansas State
Haley Jones, Stanford
Ashley Joens, Iowa State
Elissa Cunane, NC State
Aneesha Morrow, DePaul
Third Team
Cameron Brink, Stanford
Khayla Pointer, LSU
Maddy Siegrist, Villanova
Elizabeth Kitley, Virginia Tech
Destanni Henderson, South Carolina
Honorable Mention
Shakira Austin, Ole Miss
Christyn Williams, UConn
Veronica Burton, Northwestern
Grace Berger, Indiana
Kierstan Bell, FGCU
Angel Reese, Maryland