ACC releases women’s hoops awards. Here are Duke, NC State, UNC’s honors

The ACC released its list of all-conference women’s basketball honorees on Tuesday, less than a day before the conference tournament begins. Nine players from Duke, N.C. State and North Carolina earned recognition, while one coach topped the list.

Duke head coach Kara Lawson earned ACC Coach of the Year honors for her effort leading the program to a 21-8 overall record and 16-2 mark in league play. The 13th-ranked Blue Devils earned the regular season title for the first time in 13 years, all while using a seven-player rotation, and racked up the most ACC wins since 2012-13. Their two losses came on the road against No. 16 UNC and Clemson.

The turnaround in conference play comes after the Blue Devils started the season 3-6. Duke went two and a half months without a loss and racked up 17 consecutive wins. It had won 22 straight ACC games, prior to the two-point, buzzer-beater loss to Clemson. This is Lawson’s first ACC Coach of the Year honor and the first for Duke since Joanne P. McCallie earned the nod in 2013.

Duke, which earned the No. 1 seed in the ACC Championship, led the Triangle’s ACC teams in total awards. Four different players earned at least one award.

N.C. State finished with a pair of first team selections, while UNC had three players earn recognition.

Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo earned ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season, while teammate Cassandre Prosper took home Most Improved Player. Syracuse center Uche Izoje won Rookie of the Year and Louisville’s Imari Barry earned Sixth Player of the Year honors.

Duke All-ACC selections

Toby Fournier was the rookie of the year in 2025. She finished second in the 2026 Player of the Year voting (1,085 points), while earning a spot on the All-ACC first team and All-ACC defensive team, as voted on by the media and coaches.

Hidalgo (1,147) beat Fournier for Player of the Year by 62 points.

Fournier leads Duke by averaging 17.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. In ACC play, those numbers rose to 18.3 points and 8.8 rebounds. She finished the regular season with double figures in 27 of 29 games played, while adding 66 blocks.

By comparison, Hidalgo leads the ACC in 25.2 points per game and became the fastest player in conference history to reach 2,000 points. She recorded 162 steals. Notre Dame finished

After the Blue Devils’ 83-65 win over N.C. State, Lawson called Fournier “one of the best players in the country.”

“Everybody likes their player, I get it, but I think winning matters,” Lawson said. “I think it does; for awards, for player of the year, for All-American and for All-Conference. It matters that you impact winning. It matters that your team wins, and she’s doing that. She’s impacting winning. She can score, she can rebound. She’s one of the top defensive players in the league. She’s doing a lot at a high level right now. … There’s a lot of good players in the country, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a forward that impacts winning more than Fournier. It’s tough to find what she’s doing.”

Fournier also earned a spot on the All-Defensive team.

Senior point guard Taina Mair earned a spot on the All-ACC first team and defensive team. Mair averaged 11 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game. She also notched 70 steals. Her 161 assists rank No. 4 in program history, and she is seven assists away from ranking No. 3.

Ashlon Jackson, a senior guard, landed on the second team for the second straight season. She averaged 11.9 points, 3.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game.

Finally, freshman center Arianna Roberson landed on the All-Freshman team and finished second in the Sixth Player of the Year voting. Roberson contributed 8.7 points and 5.9 rebounds per game for the Blue Devils, becoming the most productive player off the bench. She added 30 blocks, second behind Fournier.

NC State conference selections

Juniors Khaml Pierre and Zoe Brooks headlined the Wolfpack’s award recipients, both earning a spot on the ACC first team. At least two N.C. State players have appeared on the first team in three consecutive seasons.

Pierre, a forward, averaged 16.8 points and a league-leading 11.9 rebounds per game. She finished the regular season with 20 double-doubles, the third player in program history to do so. Pierre ranks No. 7 in the NCAA and No. 1 in Power Four for rebounding, while tying for third in the nation for double-doubles.

Brooks earned a spot on the first team for the second consecutive season after contributing 16.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.7 steals per game. She is on track to become the second player this century to average 14 points, four rebounds and four assists per game in a season.

The junior guard scored a career-high 37 points on the road to beat Virginia, while adding another eight games with at least 20 points.

UNC ACC conference awards

Three North Carolina players earned All-ACC recognition, led by Nyla Harris and Indya Nivar.

Harris, the transfer senior forward, landed on the second team in media voting and first by the coaches. She averaged 12.6 points and 7.3 rebounds in league play, while hitting 57.6% from the field. Of Harris’ 21 double-digit performances, 14 came against ACC opponents.

Nivar earned All-ACC second team and All-Defensive team honors. She averaged 10.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and four assists per game. The senior guard contributed the program’s second triple-double, with a 13-point, 12-rebound and 10-steal performance. Nivar recorded 120 assists in the regular season and is the first Tar Heel to do it since 2019-20.

Finally, freshman Nyla Brooks earned a spot on the All-Rookie team. She scored 8.5 points and pulled down 3.1 rebounds per game. The guard scored 15 points in the season opener and later scored a career-high 21 points against Wake Forest. She blocked four shots against SMU, the most by a UNC freshman in ACC play since 2018.

2025-26 All-ACC Women’s Basketball Team*

Player of the Year: Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame

Defensive Player of the Year: Hannah Hidalgo

Rookie of the Year: Uche Izoje, Syracuse

Coach of the Year: Kara Lawson, Duke

Sixth Player of the Year: Imari Berry, Louisville

Most Improved Player: Cassandre Prosper, Notre Dame

All-ACC First Team

Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame 1,147

Toby Fournier, Duke 1,085

Kymora Johnson, Virginia 956

Khamil Pierre, NC State 923

Zoe Brooks, NC State 758

Uche Izoje, Syracuse 739

Laura Ziegler, Louisville 562

Taina Mair, Duke 481

Ra Shaya Kyle, Miami 469

Talayah Walker, Georgia Tech 435

All-ACC Second Team

Nyla Harris, North Carolina 411

Lulu Twidale, California 392

Ashlon Jackson, Duke 371

Tajianna Roberts, Louisville 336

Nunu Agara, Stanford 329

Carleigh Wenzel, Virginia Tech 326

Mia Moore, Clemson 289

Indya Nivar, North Carolina 287

Cassandre Prosper, Notre Dame 269

Imari Berry, Louisville 234

All-Defensive Team

Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame 326

Toby Fournier, Duke 215

Uche Izoje, Syracuse 197

Indya Nivar, North Carolina 121

Taina Mair, Duke 103

Brianna Turnage, Georgia Tech 83

All-Freshman Team

Uche Izoje, Syracuse 340

Lara Somfai, Stanford 239

Arianna Roberson, Duke 169

Nyla Brooks, North Carolina 142

Theresa Hagans, Pitt 97

Milan Brown, Wake Forest 84

Coach of the Year

Kara Lawson, Duke 193

Jeff Walz, Louisville 97

Felisha Legette-Jack, Syracuse 75

Sixth Player of the Year

Imari Berry, Louisville 223

Arianna Roberson, Duke 95

Nyla Brooks, North Carolina 68

Most Improved Player

Cassandre Prosper, Notre Dame 86

Brianna Turnage, Georgia Tech 74

Elif Istanbulluoglu, Louisville 69

*Based on media voting