Pair of Washington Huskies Guards Make Player of The Year Watchlist

The Washington Huskies women's basketball team is set to begin its season against the UC San Diego Tritons at 11 a.m. PT on Monday at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

The Huskies will be entering this season with a healthy amount of expectations after being ranked 16th in the preseason Associated Press Top 25, and two returning players have started to garner some individual recognition, as well.

Senior guard Sayvia Sellers will enter the season coming off a first-team All-Big Ten year in 2025-26 and was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team by coaches and media during Big Ten media days at the beginning of October.

Junior guard Avery Howell, who was All-Big Ten honorable mention last year, was named to the preseason watchlist for the Ann Meyers Drysdale award, which is given to the best to the best shooting guard in the country.

Both guards earned another honor Friday and were both named to the preseason watchlist for the Naismith Trophy Women's Player of the Year.

The two guards are 2-of-14 of the players to get added to the watchlist from the Big Ten conference.

UW is one of 12 schools with multiple players on the preseason watchlist.

Howell transferred to Washington last offseason after spending her freshman year with the Southern California (USC) Trojans. In her sophomore year (first with the Huskies), she scored 14.2 points on 50.8% shooting from the floor, including a 43.1% mark from 3-point range in 33 games (all starts) in the Pacific Northwest. The Boise, Idaho, native was the team's leading scorer through two games of the NCAA tournament and averaged 22.5 points and 8.5 rebounds.

Sellers concluded the '25-26 season with a second-straight year of scoring in double figures. She averaged 18 points across 33 games (all starts) on a 47.3% mark from the floor, including a 35.4% mark from beyond the arc. She also averaged 3.9 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals per contest. The 5-foot-7 guard came just shy of averaging a block a game (0.8).

Sellers and Howell will both spend most of UW's nonconference slate building their potential Player of the Year cases in front of the home crowd. With the exception of two games in the Coconut Hoops tournament Nov. 27 and Nov. 29, all of Washington's nonconference games will be in Washington state. The only one that won't be at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle is an away game against the Washington State Cougars on Nov. 17 at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Wash.