Lane named Freshman of the Year in Big West Conference
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Following a successful regular season that saw the UC Santa Barbara women's basketball team finish with its highest seed since the 2010-11 campaign, three Gauchos landed spots on the Big West All-Conference teams, the league office announced Monday morning.
Ila Lane – Freshman of the Year, All-Big West First Team, Big West All-Freshman Team
Lane becomes the first Freshman of the Year winner from UCSB since 2007. She is the fifth Gaucho to earn the honor, following in the footsteps of Santa Barbara greats in Erin Buescher, Lindsay Taylor, Kristen Mann, and Jordan Franey.
The Moraga native finished the season as the only player averaging a double-double in the Big West with 15.3 points and 13 rebounds per game.
Her 19 double-doubles led the conference and ranked fourth in the NCAA. She led all freshman in the nation in this category.
She also finished the regular season as the national leader in rebounds per game and second in the country in total rebounds (378).
The three-time Big West Player of the Week made her mark on the league scene with three 20-point, 20-rebound performances.
The Woodside Priory School product also made history in her rookie year, corralling the eighth-most rebounds and averaging the fifth-most rebounds per game in a single season in Big West history.
Coco Miller – All-Big West Honorable Mention
Coco Miller finishes her final regular season as a Gaucho with her third career selection to an All-Conference team, following her selection to the All-Freshman team in 2015-16 and last year's Second Team nod.
The redshirt senior had the ninth-best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NCAA this season with a 2.78 mark, good for first in the league across all games.
The San Clemente native was a workhorse in conference games, playing the fourth-most minutes among all Big West players with 37.3 minutes per game, while grabbing 41 steals and dishing out 63 assists, good for first and sixth in the league, respectively.
Her 34 triples in conference play ranked third, and her 12.4 points per game were 15th-most in the league.
Coco Miller scored double-digits in 11 of UCSB's 16 conference games and recorded at least two steals in 12 of those matchups, including a career-high-tying six against Hawai'i on Feb. 8.
Her 24 points on Jan. 11 got the team its first conference win of the season against Cal Poly at home.
Prior to conference play commencing, she had a career-high 14 helpers in UCSB's 72-57 decade-ending showing against Ottawa.
Danae Miller – All-Big West Honorable Mention
The Gauchos' junior point guard returns to the All-Conference slate for the second season in a row after earning Second Team honors following the 2018-19 season.
Danae Miller played the most minutes in the league among all Big West players, playing all but just less than two minutes per contest on average.
She rewarded the team with the second-most assists in the league (72), a tenth-best assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6), and the 10th-best points per game mark in the league (13.3).
The Carson native was also the second-most efficient player at the charity stripe in league action, converting on nearly 83% of her free throws, missing just 11 times.
The best of her ten double-digit scoring games came in the conference-opening overtime loss against Cal State Fullerton, in which she scored 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting, including five triples.
She hit the buzzer beater against Hawai'i on March 4 that ultimately secured the second seed for the Gauchos at this week's Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Big West Women's Basketball Tournament.
By virtue of that second seed, the Gauchos get a bye straight into the semifinal round and will not play until Friday afternoon at the Honda Center. Their opponent will be the highest remaining seed after the first two rounds of play, with tipoff scheduled for 2:30 p.m. or 30 minutes after the conclusion of top-seeded UC Davis' matchup at noon. All games at the conference tournament will be streamed live on WatchESPN and the ESPN app.
Article courtesy of UCSB Athletics
