The No. 3 NC State women’s basketball team was heavily honored in the ACC’s 2021 awards, including two unanimous All-ACC first-team honors, as well as a host of other awards that were announced Tuesday, March 2.
Both junior center Elissa Cunane and sophomore wing Jakia Brown-Turner were named to both the Blue Ribbon Panel and the Head Coaches All-ACC first teams. Senior forward Kayla Jones was also a first-team selection by the head coaches and a second-team selection by the Blue Ribbons Panel. Graduate guard Raina Perez was also given an All-ACC honorable mention by the Blue Ribbon Panel.
NC State finished the year as the only school to have three first-team selections in the 2020-21 season, and joined Virginia Tech as one of two programs to finish with a pair of unanimous first-team choices in Cunane and Brown-Turner.
Wolfpack head coach Wes Moore was also honored as Coach of the Year by his fellow ACC head coaches. Moore guided the team to a 17-2 record, as well as an unbeaten 11-0 record inside Reynolds Coliseum, with the Pack defeating then-No. 1 South Carolina and then-No. 1 Louisville on the road along the way.
Wrapping up the player honors was sophomore forward Jada Boyd, who was named as ACC Co-Sixth Player of the Year by the head coaches.
Cunane averaged 15.6 points and eight rebounds per game for NC State, adding 26 assists, 17 blocks and 11 steals while showing yet another leap in her game. The 6-foot-5 center finished the year shooting 55.7% from the floor and 47.6% from deep, ranking in the top 15 in the nation in scoring, rebounding, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage and blocks.
Even more impressive, Cunane reached 1,000 career points in her first game of the 2020-21 season, making her the only junior in the country to achieve such a feat. This is Cunane’s second straight year of being a unanimous selection to the ACC First Team.
In addition to her ACC award, Cunane was also announced as one of 11 semifinalists for Naismith Player of the Year. The list of finalists for the award will be announced March 18, and the winner will be announced April 3.
Brown-Turner, on the other hand, averaged 14.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in her second year with the Pack, getting it done on all sides of the floor. Brown-Turner finished the year shooting an impressive 40% from deep, leading the team in total attempts.
Jones also took a leap in her senior year with NC State, averaging 13 points and 7.3 rebounds per game while also being second on the team in total assists in a point-forward-type role. The stretch forward was arguably the Wolfpack’s best shooter, ending the year knocking down shots at a staggering 46.6% rate from that range. Jones’s evolution was noted by the fact that she came close to a triple-double against both Wake Forest and Pittsburgh and had seven assists, a career high, on three separate occasions.
Not to be outdone, Perez averaged 9.5 points per game to go along with 4.9 assists per game, which was second in the ACC.
Boyd finished the regular season averaging 10.7 points and 6.1 rebounds and is coming off a performance in which she scored 16 points, 10 rebounds and three steals in a win that delivered Syracuse its first home loss of the season.
The women’s basketball team will kick off the ACC Tournament as the No. 2 seed Friday, March. 5, against the victor of seventh-seeded Virginia Tech or 10th-seeded Miami. Virginia Tech delivered the Pack one of its only two losses this season. That game will tip off at 6 p.m.
