Credit: Mississippi State Athletics (Photo credit: Kevin Snyder)
Mississippi State women’s basketball player Jessika Carter was named to the 2023 Lisa Leslie Award Top 10 Watchlist, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Friday.
Carter was on the preseason watch list for the award, which consisted of 20 of the best centers in America, and made the cut for the top 10 for the Lisa Leslie Award. Candidates can play their way onto the list at any point during the season, but nine of the 10 honorees were on the preseason watch list.
This list will be narrowed down to five in late February, and then the finalists will be selected in late March, which will be presented to Lisa Leslie and the selection committee. The winner of this award will be presented on a to-be-determined date. Presentation details will be announced at a later date.
Fan Voting, presented by Dell Technologies, will open up on Friday, Feb. 3rd, so that fans can vote for their favorite players for the top five list coming out in late February.
Carter is having a career year under first-year head coach Sam Purcell. Carter is averaging a career-best 15.4 points per game to go along with 8.0 rebounds. She has blocked 54 shots through 22 games and is just seven blocks shy of setting a new single-season career-high. Carter has also established a career mark with 31 assists; her previous high was just 16 during the 2020-21 season while also being just nine steals away from a new career-high with 24.
She currently leads the SEC and ranks seventh in the NCAA in blocked shots (54) while leading the SEC and ranking 10th nationally in blocks per game, and she is one of only two SEC players this season with at least 50 blocked shots. Carter, who has a field goal percentage of 58.1 percent, has the second-best shooting percentage in the SEC and the 21st-best mark in the country. She also ranks fifth in the SEC in rebounds per game (8.0), ninth in free throws made (92), 9th in total points scored (338) and 4th in total rebounds (176).
