Wednesday, January 25, 2017
by Western Washington Athletic Communications

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Western Washington University senior guard Taylor Peacocke has been named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Women’s Division II National Player of the Week for the week ending January 22.

Peacocke (Kenmore, WA/Inglemoor) is the first GNAC player and second West Region player to earn the USBWA Division II National Player of the week honor. Since the award started during the 2014-15 season, Peacocke is the first player from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference to earn the women’s award.

The senior guard was nominated for the National Player of the Week award after being named the GNAC Player of the Week for Jan. 16-22. She combined to score 68 points in wins over Simon Fraser and Montana State Billings last week. Peacocke scored a career-high 41 points in the 84-72 win at nationally-ranked Simon Fraser, recording the second-most points in a single game in WWU history and tied for third best in GNAC history. She shot 13-for-19 from the field, 5-for-8 from 3-point range and was 10-for-10 from the free throw line. Peacocke went on to score 27 points in the 63-59 win over Montana State Billings. In the game, Peacocke converted a 4-point play with 1:28 left that gave WWU the lead and went on to score the final 8 points of the game.

Peacocke is a top candidate for GNAC and National Player of the Year leading all of NCAA Division II in points per game with 23.7 (427 points). She has scored in double-digits in 17 of 18 games this season, with 13 games with 20 or more points. Peacocke is also averaging 2.9 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game.

She is currently 5th in WWU history and 8th in GNAC history with 1,622 career points. Her current scoring average is on pace to set both WWU (record is 21.7 ppg) and GNAC (record is 23.5 ppg) single-season scoring average records.

The Vikings (15-3, 9-1 GNAC) take back to the road tomorrow facing Western Oregon on Thursday (7 pm) and Concordia on Saturday (2 pm). WWU has won its last 9 games and currently ranked No. 15 in the D2SIDA Division II Top 25 (media poll).