Before the season, Liberty coach John Whisenant told center Kia Vaughn that post players tend to blossom in their third season. He challenged Vaughn, the former Rutgers star from The Bronx, to follow the pattern.
Vaughn responded by averaging career highs in points (10.1) and rebounds (6.7), up from (2.1 and 1.4), and Friday will be announced as the Most Improved Player in the WNBA.
“I worked very hard on my game and when coach challenged me it made me want to show the kind of player I know I can be,” Vaughn told The Post earlier this season.
Vaughn, selected by the Liberty eighth overall in 2009, was thrust into a starting role with the absences of the team’s top two rebounders from last year — Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who signed with Minnesota, and Janel McCarville, who sat out.
Vaughn started every game this year after starting just one the previous two.
She is the second straight Liberty player and fourth overall to be picked for most improved. Leilani Mitchell was selected last year, McCarville in 2007 and Tari Phillips in 2000.
Lynx forward Maya Moore was chosen Rookie of the Year and her coach, Cheryl Reeve, earned Coach of the Year in voting by a national media panel, the WNBA announced Friday.
Moore was the No. 1 overall pick out of Connecticut and one of the most decorated female athletes in NCAA history. She didn’t disappoint in her first season as a professional, averaging 13.2 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists.
Buoyed by the addition of Moore and the healthy return of Seimone Augustus and Candice Wiggins, Reeve helped turn around the Lynx in her second season on the job. After going 13-21 and missing the playoffs last year, the Lynx went 27-7, the best record in franchise history.
They finished six games better than any other team in the league and earned homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs, which begin Friday night against the San Antonio Silver Stars.
Moore is the third Lynx player to be selected the league’s top rookie, joining Augustus (2006) and Betty Lennox (2000). Moore is the third former UConn player to win the award, after Mercury guard Diana Taurasi (2004) and Sun forward Tina Charles (2010).
Minnesota also has two candidates for MVP: Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen. The winner of that award was not disclosed.
With AP