Maryland has six players receive Big Ten honors, including freshman of the year Owusu

Ashley Owusu highlighted No. 6 Maryland's haul. She was named the Big Ten freshman of the year, as voted by the league's head coaches and a media panel, becoming the ninth Maryland player under Coach Brenda Frese to earn conference freshman of the year honors and the second straight Maryland player to earn the award in the Big Ten; Taylor Mikesell won last year. Owusu averaged 11.1 points and 4.7 assists per game in conference play. Her 150 assists this season are the second most among all freshmen in the country, behind Nevena Dimitrijevic of St. Francis Brooklyn (169).

Owusu, who was also named to the conference's five-player all-freshman team, was joined by senior guard Kaila Charles, senior forward Stephanie Jones, senior guard Blair Watson, sophomore forward Shakira Austin and Mikesell in receiving league honors.

Charles was named a unanimous all-Big Ten first-team selection for the second year in a row. The senior leads Maryland with 16.7 points and 8 rebounds per game in league play, but she lost her Big Ten player of the year bid to Iowa's Kathleen Doyle (19.8 points, 6.3 assists), who became the third Hawkeyes player in a row to win the award after Megan Gustafson won it the previous two seasons.

Jones (11.6 points, 6.7 rebounds per game in conference play) and Austin (11.1 points, 6.5 rebounds) were named to the all-Big Ten second team. Watson, who heads Maryland's remade defense this season and whose 3.1 steals per conference game were second best in the Big Ten to Northwestern's Veronica Burton (3.3), was named to the five-player all-Big Ten defensive team. Burton earned the conference's defensive player of the year award. Watson's 82 steals overall this season are the most by a Terrapin since Renneika Razor had 87 in the 2002-03 campaign.

Mikesell (10.1 points per conference game) received an all-Big Ten honorable mention.

Maryland's awards haul makes an already sweet week even sweeter after the Terps notched their largest Big Ten victory Sunday with a 99-44 win over Minnesota. They earned the No. 1 seed in this week's Big Ten tournament and will face either Purdue or Michigan State at noon Friday in the quarterfinals in Indianapolis.

Northwestern, which shared the Big Ten regular season title with the Terps, is the No. 2 seed. Wildcats coach Joe McKeown was named Big Ten coach of the year.

In the NCAA tournament selection committee's top 16 reveal Monday evening, Maryland was named a No. 1 seed alongside Baylor, Oregon and South Carolina. The NCAA reveal is a snapshot of what the tournament field would look like if the tournament began Monday.