According to the association’s statement on Tuesday, Iowa women’s basketball player Hannah Stuelke was added to the USBWA Ann Meyers Drysdale Award preseason watch list, adding to her already impressive record of accolades. Scout Springgate of the Iowa Hawkeyes Wire has been added to the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Watch List.
According to the association’s statement on Tuesday, Iowa women’s basketball player Hannah Stuelke was added to the USBWA Ann Meyers Drysdale Award preseason watch list, adding to her already impressive record of accolades. The United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) honors the renowned UCLA guard Ann Meyers Drysdale, who was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, with the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, which is given to the women’s national player of the year each year.
The Hawkeyes have won the award three times since it was first given out in the 1978–79 season. Megan Gustafson won it in 2018–19, and Caitlin Clark won it again in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024. Coming off a junior season in which she averaged 12.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in 32 games played and started, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa native is Iowa’s top returning scorer and rebounder. In Iowa’s 86-51 victory over Southern, Stuelke started her 2025–26 campaign with 20 points on 8–11 shooting, nine rebounds, one block, and one assist.
Eleven of the fifty athletes on the watch list, including Stuelke, are from the Big Ten:
UCLA’s
Lauren Betts
Kiki Rice
Gianna Kneepkins
Maryland’s Yarden Garzon
Oluchi Okananwa
Kaylene Smikle
Michigan’s
Olivia Olson
Syla Swords
Washington’s
Sayvia Sellers
Michigan State’s
Grace VanSlooten.
The USBWA will choose finalists for the award at the end of the regular season, and the entire membership will vote on them. The Missouri Athletic Club hosts the annual USBWA Awards Luncheon in St. Louis, Missouri, where the winner of the award will be formally presented after being revealed at the 2026 Women’s Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona.
