Women's Basketball

Adrianna Smith Selected as America East 2025-26 Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year

BOSTON – After putting together one of the most dominant women’s basketball seasons in league history, Adrianna Smith has been named the 2025-26 America East Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year, as announced by the league on Thursday afternoon.
 
Smith is the third Black Bear to secure this award and the second straight after Myla Schneider a year ago. Former Black Bear Liz Wood was honored back in 2015. The award has been given out every year since 1996. She was chosen from 1 of 10 female student-athletes who were named scholar-athletes in their respective sports this year.
 
Last year Smith put together one of the most dominant seasons in America East basketball history while securing her second career Player of the Year honor. The forward became the first men’s or women’s player in league history to lead the conference in scoring (22.8), rebounding (10.7) and assists (4.7) and the only player in league history with career totals of 1,500 points, 1,000 rebounds and 400 assists. In 2025-26 she joined Maya Moore as the second women’s player in NCAA history with 700 points, 300 rebounds and 150 assists in a single season.
 
Smith graduated with a 3.79 GPA as a Kinesiology & Physical Education major and earned her MBA with a 3.93 GPA. She was twice named America East Player of the Year and led Maine to the 2023-24 conference championship. Smith was also a three-time first-team all-conference selection and this past year was a Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year finalist.
 
Earlier this month Smith concluded her first season of professional basketball, playing for the Dandenong Rangers of the Australian NBL1 where she averaged 18.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
 
The Scholar-Athletes of the Year were voted on by the conference's Student-Athlete Engagement Committee. Each year, the committee elects a Scholar-Athlete in each of the league's 18 championship sports following the fall, winter and spring seasons and from that group, chooses one male and one female as the conference's Scholar-Athletes of the Year. All-time America East Scholar-Athletes of the Year.

2025-26 Scholar-Athletes Fall | Winter | Spring
 
America East is proud to have one of most comprehensive academic awards programs in the country, which honors over two-thirds of its student-athletes for their success in the classroom, including its sports Scholar-Athletes, All-Academic honorees, Presidential Scholar-Athletes, Elite 18 honorees and Honor Roll/Commissioner’s Honor Roll recipients.
 
ABOUT AMERICA EAST
Founded in 1979, the America East Conference is an elite NCAA Division I athletic conference that fosters an environment for student-athletes to become champions. Comprised of academically renowned, like-minded member institutions located in the Northeast region of the United States, America East is committed to broad-based excellence and progressive in its approach to supporting its more than 3,500 student-athletes across 18 sponsored sports. For more information, visit www.AmericaEast.com and follow the America East Conference and its social media channels, @AmericaEast. 
 
- America East Conference – Where Champions Rise -