La Jolla Country Day grad and former Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year moves to within 78 points of NCAA women’s record that was set in 2001.
Sunday’s 87-74 win by the University of Washington women over USC featured 35 points from Huskies’ All-American Kelsey Plum, who was the 2013 Cal-Hi Sports Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year.
Plum also moved past Brittney Griner of Baylor into second-place on the all-time list of career scoring leaders in the history of NCAA women’s hoops. She is leading the nation at more than 30 ppg this season and there isn’t even another reported player nationally at more than 27.
The NCAA record of 3,393 career points was set in 2001 by Jackie Stiles of Missouri State, who actually once recruited Plum as an assistant coach for Loyola Marymount.
Based on Plum’s averages and number of games left, she could break Stiles’ record in Washington’s regular season finale next Saturday at home against Utah. She needs 78 points to tie, but if her coaches and teammates know she has a chance to break it before the Pac-12 conference tournament starts they know it will be a good idea to get it out of the way at that time.
The only other former California high school star to score more than 3,000 career points in college has been USC’s Cheryl Miller. She scored 3,018 points in her years for the Trojans from 1983 to 1986. She also is a former Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year from Poly of Riverside.
