By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – On the eve of the Ohio Valley Conference Basketball Championships in Evansville, the league announced on Tuesday its end-of-season honors. After the voting was complete, the Tennessee Tech women were awarded two selections as senior guard Maaliya Owens was named to the All-OVC first-team roster, while senior guard Jada Guinn was named to the second-team.
The awards were voted on by the league's head coaches and sports information contacts.
Owens, the Georgetown, Ky., native, put together an impressive season was she was the fifth-highest scorer in the conference this season with 397 total points and an average of 14.7 per game. She led the conference in 3-pointers made with 80 – an average of 3.0 per game – and third in 3-point shooting percentage at .415. The NCAA ranks Owens first in the conference in 3-point percentage as the two players ahead of her in OVC statistics – Vanessa Shafford from Southern Indiana and Emily Benzschawel from Lindenwood – are from schools reclassifying into Division I.
Owens set the senior-season record in 3-pointers made last week as she hit her 75th long-ranger against Southern Indiana and is in position to take down the single-season mark set by Allison Clark and Blair Bowens.
For the season, Owens is shooting .412 from the floor, .415 from beyond the arc and .833 at the free throw line. She is also averaging 2.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game.
Guinn, from Oak Ridge, ranks fourth in the OVC in assists (110) and assists per game (3.9), while also ranking seventh in steals per game (1.71). She also stands as the OVC's leader in assist-to-turnover ratio at a 1.8 mark.
She is the 18th top scorer in the conference with 288 points (10.3 per game) but leads the OVC in field goal percentage, hitting at a scorching .583 rate. Guinn is also averaging 4.4 rebounds a game, while shooting .708 from the free-throw line.
She has started every game for the Golden Eagles this season and recently became one of six Tech players all-time to record more than 750 points, more than 500 rebounds, more than 300 assists and more than 125 steals in a career, moving into 10th in career assists and 12th in career steals.
The Golden Eagles will wait to see who they will play in the OVC Basketball Championships as they face the winner of SIUE and Tennessee State on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the tournament quarterfinals at Evansville's Ford Center.
