Southern Utah University had three standout basketball players in the Western Athletic Conference this season. Guard Braden Housley from the men’s team and forward Ava Uchrich from the women’s team were awarded WAC All-Freshman Team honors. Alongside Uhrich was guard Daylani Ballena, who earned herself a spot on the All-WAC Second Team.
Braden Housley
Housley started every game and played the most minutes for SUU as a redshirt freshman. He averaged 10.8 points on 38% shooting. He also averaged 3.5 rebounds and led the team with 3.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game, ranking sixth and fifth in the conference in those categories, respectively. Housley achieved all of this after not playing a single basketball game for two years.
Housley had many impressive stat lines in his freshman year. In his first college game against the California State Bakersfield Roadrunners, he put up 22 points, six rebounds and three assists on 7/16 shooting. In the narrow loss to the University of Utah, he scored a season-high 23 points, five assists and two steals while shooting 4/9 from three-point range. Against Antelope Valley, he had 22 points, three rebounds, six assists and four steals, and he shot 8/8 from the free-throw line.
Ava Uhrich
Uhrich had a great freshman year and started in 28 of 30 games. She averaged 13.1 points on 44.6% shooting, a team-leading 7.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists. Herseven double-doubles on the year, the most by a freshman in the conference, tied for the fifth most in the WAC.
Standout games for Uhrich included her performance against California Baptist University, where she scored 18 points with 14 rebounds on 3/4 shooting from three. In a tough win against the Abilene Christian University Wildcats, she put up a season-best 25 points with 12 rebounds on 9/14 shooting. In a must-win game against the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros, she scored 20 points with nine rebounds while shooting 9/13 from the field.
Daylani Ballena
Ballena had the best season of her collegiate career. The senior guard was the leading scorer and passer for the Thunderbirds with 15.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. In the WAC, Ballena placed fifth in points per game and eighth in assists. She also tied for the seventh-most 20-point games in the conference with five.
Ballena made noise in a lot of games, including her career-high 26-point, five-rebound, four-assist performance against Stephen F. Austin State University. She scored 23 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals on 10/20 shooting in a loss to Utah Tech University. In the thrilling double-overtime win against the Utah Valley University Wolverines, she had 15 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and two steals.
Author: Jacob McQueary
Photographer: Anden Garfield
Editor: Anden Garfield
sports@suunews.net
