List of NCAA Division I women's basketball career assists leaders
In basketball, an assist is a pass to a teammate that directly leads to a score by field goal.[1] The top 25 highest assists totals in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women's basketball history are listed below. The NCAA did not immediately record assists throughout women's college basketball when it began sponsoring women's sports in the 1981–82 school year; it began recording assists in Division I in 1984–85.
The all-time leader in career assists is Suzie McConnell of Penn State. She recorded 1,307 assists in 128 games (10.21 per game average) between 1984–85 and 1987–88. Second on the list is Andrea Nagy of FIU, who compiled 1,165 assists. Only four other women have recorded 1,000 career assists at the Division I level: Caitlin Clark of Iowa (1,144), Courtney Vandersloot of Gonzaga (1,118), Sabrina Ionescu of Oregon (1,091), and Tine Freil of Pacific (1,088).
All but two of the players listed compiled their totals in the standard four seasons. The exceptions are Neacole Hall of Alabama State, who compiled 869 assists despite playing only three seasons in Division I (1986–87 to 1988–89), and Lauren Park-Lane, who played in five seasons (2019–20 to 2023–24). Park-Lane benefited from a blanket NCAA waiver that did not count the 2020–21 season, heavily disrupted by COVID-19, against the eligibility of any basketball player. Hall is also the all-time Division I leader in assists per game with 10.35, slightly ahead of McConnell's 10.21.[2] In all, 16 of the top 25 players in career assists are also in the top 25 for assists per game.[2][a]
Two schools have two players represented in the top 25 of the all-time career assists leader board — FIU with Nagy and Dalma Iványi, and Iowa with Clark and Samantha Logic. The aforementioned Park-Lane is the only individual in the top 25 to have played at more than one school; she played four years at Seton Hall before transferring to Mississippi State for her final season.
^The career leaderboards for total assists and assists average in the 2019–20 Division I record book have 15 names in common. Sabrina Ionescu has since entered both lists, without displacing any of the other 15 players alluded to.
^Reflects the calendar year in which the player's Division I career began. All listings of player records in official NCAA record books categorize seasons by the calendar years in which they ended.
^Except as otherwise noted, references for each entry are from the most recent edition of the NCAA Division I women's basketball record book, cited in the "General references" section below.
References
General
"Career Records: Assists"(PDF). 2019–20 Division I Women's Basketball Records. NCAA. p. 17. Retrieved December 13, 2019.
