Women's College Basketball Player of the Year Rankings: Hannah Hidalgo and Juju Watkins pulling away

It's officially mid-January, which means we are about a month and a half away from the end of the regular season. From there NCAA basketball will leap right into conference tournaments, and from there, March Madness. It seems a little far off, but it's not. The amount of games these teams will play is dwindling, and what was a wide-open race to see who was going to shine this year has turned into a two-woman race.

At this point (and things could change), Hannah Hidalgo and Juju Watkins seem to be the clear frontrunners in the Player of the Year race.

Juju Watkins, USC

To describe Juju Watkins's importance to the success of USC, all you need to do is look at her last game. USC played Penn State, and Watkins scored 35 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 steals and 3 blocks, shooting 86.7 percent from the field.

That's 13-of-15 from the field. Those two misses were from 3-point range — so Watkins made every single shot she made within the arc.

Aside from this one performance, Watkins is averaging 25.5 points per game in 33.3 minutes per game. Her defensive rating of 68.5 is in the 100th percentile nationwide. She has scored 433 points this season so far, and her Trojans are currently 16-1 on the season, undefeated in the Big 10, and lead the entire conference.

Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame

Hannah Hidalgo's stats are not that much different from Watkins. She averages 25.7 points per game in 35.3 minutes. Her 4.1 steals per game are in the 100th percentile in the country, and she has scored 385 total points this season.

Notre Dame are 14-2 on their season, also undefeated in their conference, and sit first in the ACC. Hidalgo also recently had her own 30+ point game when she scored 33 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 steals against Loyola Maryland.

Hannah regularly gets up there in steals, and her season high is six in a game — though she has done that a handful of times in the season.

The voters are going to have a hard time in a few months. While there are certainly players on the cusp here who could re-enter the case for player of the year, Watkins and Hidalgo are making a good case for themselves.

Are these the only metrics to go by though? A delicate balance of player stats, team wins, difficulty of schedule, and countless other little facors all contribute to who ultimately wins the award. There are players with higher stat categories on lower ranked teams, so what deems them out of the race?

In the coming weeks we will continue to asses the best players in the NCAAW through various metrics and see who continues to come out on top.