Women's Basketball

Former Syracuse point guard Alexis Peterson named to All-America Second Team

Evan Jenkins | Staff Photographer

In orchestrating one of Syracuse women's basketball most dominant seasons, Peterson picked up numerous ACC honors and lifted SU to its eighth straight 20-win season.

Former Syracuse point guard Alexis Peterson has been named to the Associated Press’ All-America Second Team, becoming SU’s first AP All-American since Nicole Michael in 2010 and the program’s third overall (Kayla Alexander was an honorable mention in 2013).

In her senior season, Peterson was named 2016-17 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, the first player in program history to win the honor. The 5-foot-7 guard averaged 23.4 points, seven assists and three steals per game this season. She led the conference in scoring and led the ACC in assists and steals during ACC games. She set the Syracuse single-season scoring record with 721 points and earned four conference player of the week honors, a program record.

She also scored a single-game record 45 points in a victory against North Carolina State on Jan. 12, marking the most points scored by an individual, male or female, in Carrier Dome history. In SU’s season-ending loss to four-time defending national champion Connecticut last week, she scored a team-high 25 points.

In 134 career games, Peterson scored 1,978 points, which ranks second in program history. She dished out 590 assists, the top mark in program history. Peterson and Washington’s Kelsey Plum were the only two active players in the country with at least 1,800 points scored and 500 assists.

Since dominating during the 2016 NCAA Tournament, Peterson emerged as one of the nation’s best point guards. Her scoring average bumped to nearly 24 points from 16 her junior season. In developing into a do-it-all pilot of the SU offense, her assist numbers bumped up to seven from 4.7 a year ago.



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Evan Jenkins | Staff Photographer

“She is one the best point guards I have ever gone up against in my 10 years,” Army head coach Dave Magarity said last March.

“She’s one of the top three point guards in the country,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said in October.

“We tried to double her, we tried to trap her, we tried to keep it out of her hands,” NC State head coach Wes Moore said Jan. 12. “But we just couldn’t find a way.”

“She might be the most improved player in the league,” Notre Dame Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw said Feb. 19.

Peterson scored at least 10 points in all but one of her 33 starts this season. She partnered with redshirt senior guard Brittney Sykes for the top-scoring backcourt in the nation. Peterson went from proving people wrong to the hallmark of the program.

She is projected to be drafted in the top 5 at next month’s WNBA Draft.





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