Lancaster, PA – Women's Basketball's Diarra Oden joins Dickinson's Elaina Clancy as the Centennial Conference nominees for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year award. The nominees are selected by the Centennial's Senior Woman Administrators. Oden is the first JHU Centennial Conference Woman of the Year selection since Ana Bogdanovski in 2015.  
 
The Woman of the Year award honors graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in academics, athletics, service, and leadership. To be deemed eligible, each nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport, completed eligibility in her primary sport, and earned her undergraduate degree by Summer 2022. The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee identifies the Top 30 – 10 from each division – and from there selects three finalists from each division. The top 30 honorees will be announced in September.
 
Oden stacks this honor on top of an impressive pile of accolades from her time as a standout on the hardwood. The Atlanta, GA native became one of just eight players in Centennial Conference history to earn first team WBCA All-America honors. She was one of just 10 finalists nationally for the highly coveted Jostens Trophy, an award given out to the most outstanding plyer in Division III. Oden was named the Centennial Conference Player of the Year for the 2021-22 season, also earning her second first team all-conference selection. To put it into historical perspective, Oden is one of just two Blue Jays to earn first team All-America honors, one of five to be named CC Player of the Year, one of six to earn D3hoops.com All-Region honors, one of seven to earned CoSIDA Academic All-District distinction, and one of two Jostens finalists. No one else in JHU program history can claim all of those accolades.
 
The standout guard has her name littered throughout the record books as well. She ranks in the top-10 in free throws made (257), minutes per game (27.7), and points per game (13.4). She ranks in the top-20 in free throw percentage (.769), points (1,073), three-pointers made (78), defensive rebounds (271), field goals made (369), and steals (137). Oden helped lead the Jays to NCAA Tournament berths in two of the three full seasons during her Hopkins tenure.

The lone three-time captain in program history put in work off the court as well. Oden graduated this spring with a 3.55 GPA, majoring in public health and minoring in english. Oden spent time as a research assistant in the JHU School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience and also wrote a thesis on the lateral habenula (LHb), a newly found region of the brain. She received the Dr. Paul B. Lavine Memorial Scholarship for academic excellence, hard work and talent.
 
Oden mentored young girls and volunteered at a non-profit called Squashwise Baltimore while at Johns Hopkins. She tutored, taught various subjects related to Black Women's history, and led virtual workouts. She helped found the Black Student Athlete Association (BSAA) at JHU and was the co-founder of the Athlete Book Club (ABC). Oden mentored young black athletes through BSAA and helped to facilitate the creation of diversity, equity and inclusion events and creating a mentorship program. Oden was an inaugural cohort member of Blue Jays LEAD, a contingent of captains from each varsity team at JHU. Finally, Oden was a student advisor on the Public Health Studies Student Committee, a pharmacy technician at a CVS on campus, and a volunteer intern for SimpliFed Research.