Nov. 3, 2010
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Gonzaga University women's basketball senior Courtney Vandersloot was selected as one of 30 candidates on Wednesday for the 2011 Lowe's Senior CLASS Award for women's basketball.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®, the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
Sixty NCAA® men's and women's student-athletes who excel both on and off the court were selected as candidates for the award. To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence - community, classroom, character and competition.
The 2011 women's candidate class includes five players who were CoSIDA Academic All-Americans last year, 22 student-athletes with grade point averages of 3.0 or better, four players who participated in the 2010 Women's Final Four and 15 players on the preseason watch list for the John R. Wooden Award. Lowe's, an official Corporate Partner of the NCAA, will announce the women's basketball Senior CLASS Award winner at the NCAA Women's Final Four® in Indianapolis.
The candidate class will be narrowed to 10 men's and 10 women's finalists midway through the regular season, and those names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one finalist who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character and competition.
Vandersloot maintains a 3.06 GPA as a sport management major with an applied communications studies minor. She was named to the Gonzaga President's List in the spring of 2009. The Kent, Wash., native has also been very active in the community during her time at Gonzaga. She has assisted with registration for the Alzheimer's Memory Walk and handed out water at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk. She has also taken part in many PSA's during her tenure; filmed a Success by Six Commercial, which is a collaborative community initiative to focus attention and take action on strategies to help all children achieve healthy early development; donated her time to be in a PSA for the inland Northwest Blood Center encouraging the local community to donate blood and this past summer was part of the Step Up Spokane campaign.
On the basketball court, Vandersloot has career averages of 13.6 points, 7.5 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game. She was named West Coast Conference Newcomer of the Year in 2007-08, West Coast Conference Player of the Year in both 2008-09 and 2009-10, and earned WCC All-Conference accolades all three years. The 5-9 point guard currently holds the Gonzaga and West Coast Conference career record for assists with 751, the Gonzaga career record for steals with 252 and is eighth all-time in points scored with 1,361. She enters her senior season as a preseason WCC All-Conference pick and is on both the John R. Wooden Award Preseason Watch list and the Preseason Wade Watch list.
2011 Lowe's Senior CLASS Award Women's Basketball Candidates
Name, Position, School
Kachine Alexander, Guard, Iowa
Erin Anthony, Forward, Army
Angie Bjorklund, Guard/Forward, Tennessee
Jessica Breland, Forward, North Carolina
Victoria Dunlap, Forward, Kentucky
Dawn Evans, Guard, James Madison
Amber Harris, Forward, Xavier
Ify Ibekwe, Forward, Arizona
Amy Jaeschke, Center, Northwestern
Alyssa Karel, Guard, Wisconsin
Michelle Kirk, Forward, American
Jantel Lavender, Center, Ohio State
Maya Moore, Forward, Connecticut
Kayla Pedersen, Forward, Stanford
Ta'Shia Phillips, Center, Xavier
Julie Piper, Forward, Eastern Washington
Jeanette Pohlen, Guard, Stanford
Lauren Prochaska, Forward, Bowling Green
Erica Prosser, Guard, Lehigh
Sam Quigley, Guard, DePaul
Liz Repella, Guard, West Virginia
Jence Rhoads, Guard, Vanderbilt
Danielle Robinson, Guard, Oklahoma
Jaleesa Ross, Guard, Fresno State
Sam Schuett, Forward, Creighton
Brittney Smith, Forward, Dartmouth
Helena Sverrisdottir, Guard/Forward, TCU
Kayla Tetschlag, Guard/Forward, Green Bay
Jasmine Thomas, Guard, Duke
Courtney Vandersloot, Guard, Gonzaga
