Three Bowling Green State University basketball players, Elissa Brett, Allison Day and Nyla Hampton, were selected to the All-Mid-American Conference Team Tuesday.
Brett was voted to the All-MAC First Team, while Day was named to the all-conference second team.
Hampton was named the MAC Defensive Player of the Year, while both Brett and Hampton made the MAC’s All-Defensive Team.
Brett is the Falcons’ first all-conference first-team selection in nine years, since both Jillian Halfhill and Alexis Rogers earned first-team honors in 2013-14.
Both Brett and Day have earned All-MAC accolades for the first time in their respective careers. Day, a graduate transfer, is in her first season with the Falcons.
Hampton is only the second player in school history to be named MAC Defensive Player of the Year, joining Lindsay Austin (2003-04).
Hampton’s second steal during the Falcons’ 70-36 MAC tournament quarterfinal win over Eastern Michigan Wednesday broke the program’s single season record (93) that stood for 30 years. BGSU coach Robyn Fralick said if you saw her play, you would know how she does it.
“Have you gotten to watch her? I think she’s this amazing combination of instincts, length — she has crazy long arms — toughness and a desire to do it,” Fralick said.
“We ask her to play full court defense a lot and we ask her to be disruptive a lot, and we ask her to be kind of disruptive off the other team’s rhythm and she has such a commitment to it,” Fralick continued.
“She takes a real pride in it and over our season that is asking a lot, night in and night out, over possessions. She’s really special.
“She’s been really good defensively since she got here, and then I think this year she took it up a notch because I think she got stronger this offseason and her fitness went up a notch, and I think that’s allowed her to be the Defensive Player of the Year.
Hampton is on pace to shatter the BGSU career record for steals per game. Hampton has been named to the MAC All-Defensive Team for the third time in as many seasons at BG, while Brett earns that honor for the first time.
Prior to this season, Hampton was the only player in program history to be named to the league’s all-defensive squad, which has existed since 2015-16.
Brett, a native of Adelaide, Australia, leads the Falcons in scoring, with 14.5 points per game, and is second in rebounding, with six per contest.
She has made 76 three-point field goals this winter, tied for the sixth-highest total in school history.
In MAC games, Brett had 15.8 ppg and 5.9 rpg, and made 58 three-pointers, leading the league in triples made per game. She made 87.8% of her free-throw attempts, ranking third in the conference in MAC games.
Brett has scored in double figures in 25 of this season’s 30 games, and she also leads the Falcons with six 20-point games and 12 double-doubles this season.
Brett ranks 19th in school history in career scoring and 13th in rebounding, with 1,237 points and 709 boards, and she ranks 12th with 159 three-pointers made.
Day, who hails from Russellville, Ohio (Eastern), is second on the team in scoring, with 12.9 ppg, and also has 4.6 rpg on the season.
She is shooting 54.6% from the field, leading the MAC in field-goal percentage. Day shot a MAC-best 55.6% in conference games, and averaged 15.6 ppg and 5.2 rpg. Day has scored in double figures in 19 games, with five contests of 20 points or more.
She scored a career-high 31 points in the Falcons’ win over Toledo at the Stroh Center, and had a 27-point game in BG’s victory against Miami. Day, who came to BG after a stellar four-year career at Loyola (Ill.), has career totals of 1,527 points and 782 rebounds.
Hampton, a native of Huber Heights, Ohio (Wayne), is averaging 11 points, and leads the Falcons in assists (3.47) and steals (3.03 ).
She leads the entire league in both total steals (93) and steals per game, and owns two of the top-five single-season steal totals in school history.
In just her third season as a Falcon – she is just nine steals shy of the school record. Hampton currently ranks eighth in the nation in total steals and 12th in the country in steals per game.
The Falcons are 26-5 overall, and BGSU finished MAC regular-season play with a 14-4 mark.
BG, the number-two seed for the MAC Tournament, will face third-seeded Ball State’s in today’s semifinal round at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in downtown Cleveland.
