Accolades are rolling in for West Virginia's J.J. Quinerly
By Joseph Smith
It’s college basketball award season, and West Virginia junior guard J.J. Quinerly is definitely getting her flowers from those selecting the best that women’s college basketball had to offer this season.
Quinerly was named the 2023-2024 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year on Tuesday, becoming the first player in program history to earn the award. In addition to this distinction, the Big 12 placed Quinerly on this season’s All-Big 12 First Team and All-Big 12 Defensive Team for her on-court performance.
The announcement follows the news this week that Quinerly was recently named one of just five finalists nationwide for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Shooting Guard of the Year award. Quinerly can be supported by fans through the award’s Fan Voting starting on Friday, March 8, on hoophallawards.com -- the fan vote will weigh into the award committee’s final vote.
Individually on defense, Quinerly is second on the team and twelfth nationally with 3.03 steals per game, and second on the team and eleventh nationally in total steals with 88. She stands tall as a leader both on-and-off the court for a team defense that ranks first nationally in turnover margin at 8.97, and second nationally with 14.0 steals per game and 24.10 turnovers forced per game.
That defensive aggression and efficiency doesn’t just help the team on that particular end of the floor. Quinerly manages to seamlessly transition that defense into offensive production, making her quite dangerous as a shooting guard. It’s helped her pace WVU with 19.4 points per game this season. Quinerly talked following a game against Iowa State this season on what defense means to her, and how it helps her offensive game as well.
“I love defense — defense leads to offense,” Quinerly said. “Them easy points I can get off a steal, just seeing the ball go into the hoop, and then, it keeps going. It gives me a rhythm to hit threes, jumpers, all that.”