Missouri's women's basketball team just got a commitment from top in-state recruit Aijha Blackwell earlier this week. But another Missouri native, Sophie Cunningham, hopes to lead the Tigers to their best result yet this season, her senior year.
Cunningham is on the preseason watch list for the Cheryl Miller Award, honoring the nation's best small forwards in women's college basketball. The 6-foot-1 Cunningham was an All-SEC pick last season, as she averaged 18.5 points and 4.7 rebounds for the Tigers (24-8).
Cunningham is joined on the Miller award list by one other SEC player, Tennessee sophomore Rennia Davis.
The ACC has the most players on the Miller watch list, with six: Syracuse's Miranda Drummond, Duke's Leaonna Odom, Georgia Tech's Francesca Pan, Wake Forest's Elisa Penna, Notre Dame's Jackie Young and Virginia's Jocelyn Willoughby.
The Pac-12 and Big 12 each have three players on the list, with Washington State's Borislava Hristova, Oregon State's Katie McWilliams and Oregon's Satou Sabally; and Iowa State's Bridget Carleton, West Virginia's Naomi Davenport and Texas' Joyner Holmes.
The other players on the watch list are: Maryland's Kaila Charles, Marquette's Erika Davenport, DePaul's Mart'e Grays, North Dakota's Lexi Klabo, Northern Illinois' Courtney Woods and Tennessee State's Tia Wooten.
The other women's college basketball positional awards, which are sponsored by the Naismith Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, are named after Nancy Lieberman (point guard), Ann Meyers Drysdale (shooting guard), Katrina McClain (power forward) and Lisa Leslie (center). The watch lists for the Lieberman and Meyers Drysdale awards previously have been released; the last two will be released later this week.
Each award will be pared down to 10 finalists in February and five in March. The winners will be announced at the Final Four in Tampa in April. UConn's Gabby Williams, now with the WNBA's Chicago Sky, was the inaugural winner of the Miller honor last season.