Mizzou’s Sophie Cunningham is SEC women’s basketball freshman of the year

It hasn’t exactly been a secret that Missouri guard Sophie Cunningham was the best freshman in the Southeastern Conference this season.

The conference made it official Tuesday as Cunningham was voted SEC women’s basketball freshman of the year by the league’s coaches. She also was selected to the All-SEC second team along with junior forward Jordan Frericks.

Cunningham, who leads the Tigers in scoring at 13.8 points per game, is the first Mizzou player to win conference freshman of the year honors. She won the SEC freshman of the week award a record six times during the season and on Sunday against Vanderbilt became only the second MU freshman to score 400 points.

Frericks, whose 12.3 points per game are second on the team, repeated as an All-SEC second-team selection. She leads the Tigers and ranks seventh in the SEC at 7.9 rebounds per game. Frericks is the 33rd MU player to top 1,000 career points.

Freshman forward Cierra Porter joined Cunningham on SEC All-Freshman team. Both also played together at Columbia Rock Bridge before coming to Mizzou. Porter averages 9.4 points and 5.6 rebounds this season.

The Tigers, 21-8 and 8-8 in the SEC, are the No. 8 seed in the SEC Tournament and return to action Thursday against No. 9 seed Auburn at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla. The game is at 11 a.m. Central and will be televised on the SEC Network with the winner drawing No. 1 seed South Carolina in the quarterfinals Friday.

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 6:12 PM with the headline "Mizzou’s Sophie Cunningham is SEC women’s basketball freshman of the year."