James Madison University women’s basketball players Peyton McDaniel, Ashanti Barnes, and Bree Robinson have received postseason honors from the Sun Belt Conference. The awards were announced by the league on Monday.
Peyton McDaniel was selected for the All-Sun Belt First Team. Ashanti Barnes made the Second Team for a second consecutive season. Both Barnes and Bree Robinson were named to the Sun Belt All-Defensive Team.
McDaniel is the first James Madison player to earn first team all-conference honors in back-to-back seasons since Kamiah Smalls, who achieved this three times between 2018 and 2020. McDaniel’s average of 18.3 points per game ranks second in the conference, and her 7.5 rebounds per game place her seventh. She had 12 games with more than 20 points and recorded seven double-doubles, four of which came against Sun Belt opponents.
In her career, McDaniel ranks among active Division I players as second in three-pointers made (334), third in total points (2,235), fourth in field goals (801), and fifteenth in rebounds (998). With two more rebounds, she will become only the second player in school history to record over 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds during a career, joining former WNBA player Tamera Young.
Ashanti Barnes averaged at least 15 points and nine rebounds per game this season while also contributing 67 assists. Nationally, she is ranked twenty-second in total rebounds with 287. Barnes produced ten double-doubles during the season, including three games with more than 20 points. On Senior Day against Coastal Carolina on February 27, she scored 29 points and collected 16 rebounds.
Barnes led the Sun Belt Conference in field goal percentage during league play at 53.7 percent and increased her averages to 16.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game.
Bree Robinson averaged 12.1 points and 3.4 assists per game in her first season as a starter for James Madison. Against conference opponents, she raised her scoring average to 14 points per game while shooting nearly fifty percent from the field and forty percent from three-point range.
Robinson also tallied seventy-eight steals this season—second most in both the conference and program history for a single season—and ranked twenty-seventh nationally in that category. She had five or more steals in four games this year, including a career-high seven at Arkansas State on January 25.
Other major Sun Belt postseason awards included Player of the Year Kishyah Anderson of Georgia Southern; Defensive Player of the Year Zay Dyer of Troy; Newcomer of the Year Timaya Lewis-Eutsey of Marshall; Freshman of the Year Kinsea Grimes of Coastal Carolina; Sixth Woman of the Year Mimi McCollister of Arkansas State; and Coach of the Year Hana Haden of Georgia Southern.
The full list of All-Sun Belt teams featured players from several universities across all three teams as well as defensive selections.
