BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU women’s basketball trio of Mikaylah Williams, MiLaysia Fulwiley and Jada Williams were named to the Naismith Trophy Women’s College Player of the Year Watch List Top 50 on Thursday.
Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, the first Naismith trophy was awarded in 1969 to UCLA’s Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The trophy has become one of the most prestigious national honors awarded each year to top basketball players in the nation. The Naismith Women’s Player of the Year Award was first given to Anne Donovan of Old Dominion University in 1983.
LSU’s current assistant coach and former player Seimone Augustus is the lone Tiger to earn the Naismith Trophy. She was awarded the trophy in 2005 and 2006.
Mikaylah enters her fourth season at LSU as one of the top returning guards in the country. She is coming off a strong junior campaign after being a part of LSU’s fourth consecutive Sweet 16 appearance. Mikaylah is one of the purest scorers on the women’s basketball scene with the ability to impact the game from anywhere on the court, offensively and defensively.
One of the three mainstays in LSU’s starting lineup a season ago, Mikaylah led the Tigers in three-point field goals made (50), defensive rebounds (159), assists (127) and minutes (999). She averaged 14.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game, which garnered her an honorable mention on the Associated Press All-America list and earned her a spot on the All-SEC First Team. In her junior season, Mikaylah eclipsed 1,500 career points against Tennessee and 500 career rebounds against South Carolina in the SEC Tournament semifinal.
Mikaylah was a unanimous selection to the Coaches All-SEC First Team. She was also named to the All-SEC First Team as chosen by the media.
Fulwiley, a game-changing 5-10 guard joined the LSU program in the offseason as one of the nation’s most creative offensive players. In her two seasons at South Carolina, she came off the bench in all but three of her 77 games with the Gamecocks, averaging 11.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals. Fulwiley was a crucial piece to two-straight national championship appearances with one national title in hand from her freshman season.
Fulwiley came to LSU as the SEC Sixth Woman of the Year after helping her previous program to an SEC Championship and an NCAA Championship appearance against the University of Connecticut. In her freshman year, Fulwiley was on the 2024 SEC All-Freshman team and was the MVP of the SEC Tournament.
Jada joined the LSU roster after spending her junior season at Iowa State, averaging 15.3 points, 7.7 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game. In 32 games played and started in Ames, she earned All-Big 12 First-Team honors for her performance throughout her third collegiate season. Jada was ranked in the top five nationally in both assists (246) and assists per game (7.7). The versatile point guard posted the second-best Iowa State single-season mark for assists (246).
Before making the move to Iowa State, Jada spent her first two seasons at Arizona in Tucson. In her sophomore year, she led the Wildcats in scoring with 12.7 points per game and 13.4 points per game in conference matchups. Jada posted 23 double-figure scoring performances on the season, leading Arizona in scoring in eight games.
Jada was the third-highest scorer among Pac-12 freshmen in her opening season with the Wildcats, averaging 9.5 points per game. She played 1,012 minutes, the third-most by a freshman in Arizona program history and totaled 16 double-figure scoring games, leading the team in scoring five times.
Each year the club’s board publishes the Naismith watch list that is composed of the top 50 players to watch in men’s and women’s college basketball. The organization will release a mid-season list of 30 Naismith candidates. At the end of the season, the Naismith Trophy is awarded to the player of the year in men’s and women’s college basketball.
A national voting academy of leading basketball coaches, administrators and journalists narrows the group down to four finalists based on player performance throughout the season. The final four Naismith finalists will make up the ballot and the player of the year is voted on by the group.
LSU returns to action Thursday night for the second of two exhibition games against Loyola (N.O.) at 7 p.m. CT inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.