Keeping Tabs on Yvonne Ejim’s Historic Career

the senior will surely go down as a legendary Zag, if she’s not there already

As I briefly mentioned in the Santa Clara recap article, Yvonne Ejim has climbed to #4 in Gonzaga’s record book for career marks in points scored with 2003. She’s the fourth player to reach such milestone with the others being Heather Bowman (2,165; 2006-2010), Courtney Vandersloot (2,073; 2007-2011) and Tammy Tibbles (2,011; 1984-1988).

Not only that, Ejim was recently named to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List. While not mandatory to be selected to this watch list, such nomination would certainly seem to increase her chances at selection to the National Ballet, which comprises 15 platers of which 10 will be selected to the Wooden Award All-American Team and/or Player of the Year. The most recent winners, Caitlin Clarke and Zach Edey, both won back-back POTY awards so this represents a changing of the guard for both Women and Men.

Mind you, Ejim has been nominated for several other national awards including the Becky Hammond POTY Preseason Watchlist, the Naismith College POTY Watchlist, and she’s likely in the minds of smart media members for countless of other awards given that she took home 7 awards last season.

With just 162 points to go for the all-time Gonzaga record, Yvonne has a wonderful opportunity to leave her stamp as the career best scorer at Gonzaga, but is this the only record she can claim in the remaining 14 regular season games of her career?

I’ll be using these two sources to help me map out Yvonne’s pathway to legendary status. The first comes from Gonzaga and looks to be their publishing for announcers/etc so it doesn’t just include records so you will have to page 26 to see the career record numbers. The second comes Sports Reference because they have other statistics that are relevant to the game and provide real-time updates regarding a player’s position on these lists, which I will be using when referenced.

I will delineate which site I am referencing when describing the record of note because while Sports Reference is great, there are might be little discrepancies because they may not have data tracked across the Bulldogs’ program history. I will also highlight the start of tracking when utilizing such resource. However, if you have a dispute, please let us all know in the comments because I will update Sports Reference to see if addenda could me made in light of new information.

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^ = Sports Reference

* = Gonzaga

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Currently Held Records

^Defensive Rebounds (tracking: 2002-03) — 581

^Offensive Rebounds (tracking: 2002-03) — 375

^Effective Field Goal Percentage (tracking: 1986-87) — 56.2%

*Field Goal Percentage — 55.8%

^Personal Fouls (tracking: 2002-03) — 359

^Player Efficiency Rating (PER) (complete: 2018-19; partial data prior) — 36.1

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Possible Records to Surpass

*Games Played

• Yvonne Ejim: 143
• Current Leader: Kaylynne Truong (2019-24) with 161
• Chances: this could be a close one as the Zags have 14 regular season games remaining. I’m not sure if this record includes postseason appearances, but those will need to occur for Ejim to have a chance to surpass her former teammate. Either way, she will reside in the top 2 after the completion of this campaign.

*Points Scored

• Yvonne Ejim: 2,003
• Current Leader: Heather Bowman (2006-2010) with 2,165
• Chances: this is all but in the bag and we will likely be celebrating this shortly

*Field Goals Made

• Yvonne Ejim: #2 with 819
• Current Leader: Tammy Tibbles (1984-88) with 828
• Chances: this is all but in the bag and we will likely be celebrating this shortly

*Free Throws Made

• Yvonne Ejim: #6 with 353
• Current Leader: Heather Bowman (2006-2010) with 520
• Chances: Yvonne started this year not even on the list and currently sits at #6. She would have to average just over 11 free throws per game (assuming just 14 regular season games) to eclipse the current record so I’m not too sure Ejim will top this list, but she’ll have a chance to challenge Jill Barta’s record of 442 if things keep going the way they have been for the Canadian.

*Total Rebounds

• Yvonne Ejim: 956
• Current Leader: Kay Koppelman (1987-1991) with 975
• Chances: while we might have to wait a little bit longer than Yvonne’s chances for points and field goals made, this record should be eclipsed in the next 2-3 games

*Blocks

• Yvonne Ejim: #6 with 126
• Current Leader: Shelby Cheslek (2012-16) with 213
• Chances: across her career, Ejim’s best season-mark for blocks came way back in the ‘21-22 campaign when she swatted away 42 shots, which correlates to 1.2 blocks per game. Since then, the Canadian hasn’t averaged more than 1 block per game and this season marks her lowest at Gonzaga since becoming a regular player with just 0.9 per game. With just about 14 games left, Ejim really only has a chance to realistically rank 4th all-time by end of the season.

^Win Shares (complete: 2002-03; partial data prior)

• Yvonne Ejim: 25.4
• Current Leader: Courtney Vandersloot (2007-2011) with 31.9
• Chances: the concept of win shares was conceived by Bill James in his book by the same name that was released in 2002. The calculation of such statistic is incredibly obtuse and so, for brevity purposes, I lack the full understanding to know if Yvonne will take the crown away from Courtney. If we use last season’s 9.1 win shares, a career high for the forward, as replicable, then Ejim would be expected to jump up 5.6 points, which would fall just shy of the #1 position

^Offensive Box +/- (complete: 2010-11; partial data prior)

• Yvonne Ejim: 7.9
• Current Leader: Brynna Maxwell (2022-2024) with 8.1
• Chances: this should happen before the end of the season given that Yvonne is only about 3 points off her career-high mark set last season.

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So, there you have my attempt at celebrating and parsing together the potential records Yvonne Ejim could walk away with come this Spring. I would advise buying this all-time great Zags’ merchandise as soon as you can if you haven’t done so yet.