Terriers Take Home Three Annual AE Year-End Awards
March 12, 2009 | Women's Basketball
March 11, 2009
Cambridge, Mass. - Amidst the best season in Boston University women's basketball history, senior Jesyka Burks-Wiley has earned the program's first-ever America East Player of the Year accolade, the conference announced on Thursday morning at its annual awards banquet held at the Basketball Hall of Fame. Senior Amarachi Umez-Eronini garnered the conference's Defensive Player of the Year award, while head coach Kelly Greenberg was named the Coach of the Year.
It marked the first time since 2005-06 that a conference team took home three of the four major year-end awards. In addition, Burks-Wiley, Umez-Eronini and senior Christine Kinneary were named to the America East All-Conference First Team, becoming the first squad since the 1992-93 Vermont team to place three players on the first team. Umez-Eronini and Kinneary also collected All-Defensive Team honors, while classmate Kristi Dini was named to the America East All-Conference Third Team.
Burks-Wiley has saved her best season for last, averaging a career-high 18.1 points per game - the best single-season average since Katie Terhune posted 18.6 ppg in 2001-02 and the fourth-highest all-time. In 2008-09, Burks-Wiley surpassed 1,000 points and 500 rebounds, becoming just the eighth player in program history to pass both career milestones. Recently, she broke into BU's top seven and the conference's top 50 for all-time scoring.
Umez-Eronini established herself as the league's top defensive player this year after recording a conference-high 73 steals, as she is now just six away from breaking into BU's top 10 for steals in a season and is currently ranked 33rd in the nation this year. The Washington, D.C., native provided the heroics at Binghamton on Feb. 18 with a last-second layup in overtime to catapult the Terriers to a one-point victory. In that contest, she recorded 11 points and 11 assists, earning the first of her three America East Player of the Week honors.
Greenberg, currently in her fifth year at the helm, has amassed 90 wins during her tenure at BU and 174 as a head coach. She boasts the best winning percentage (.593) at BU in the last 30 years and is the program's only head coach to record back-to-back 20-win seasons in the team's 34 years. As a head coach, she has made seven trips to the NCAA tournament and this year's regular-season title was the eighth of her career.
Kinneary, who garnered nearly half of the votes cast for the final ballot for Fans' Choice Player of the Year, earns her first spot on the conference's first team after appearing on the third team last year and the all-rookie team in 2006. Kinneary is having the best year of her career as a Terrier, and has helped rewrite the record books as she now owns the career mark for assists (529) and minutes (3,704). She is closing in on the games played record, which is currently held by former teammate Cheri Raffo (`08) at 123. She is third all-time in the America East Conference in career handouts. She leads the league and is ranked ninth in the nation currently with an assist/turnover ratio of 2.22.
Dini is enjoying a banner year in the scarlet and white, breaking BU's single-season and career marks for treys, which now stand at 92 and 191, respectively. She has proven to be one of the most clutch 3-point shooters in the league, breaking the conference's single-season 3-point record on a triple from the corner at Hartford on Feb. 24, sending the game into overtime and helping the team on to victory in the extra session. In addition, Dini is among the nation's elite 3-point shooters, ranking third in the NCAA this season with 3.3 treys per game.
The Terriers will tip-off on Friday (March 13) at 2 p.m. against the winner of the #8 Albany-#9 Maine game in the quarterfinals of the America East Women's Basketball Championship.
