NEW YORK (AP) — Caitlin Clark has been named the WNBA Rookie of the Year by a near-unanimous vote, giving the Indiana Fever back-to-back winners after Aliyah Boston won the honor last season.

A national panel of sportswriters and sportscasters gave Clark 66 of the 67 votes released Thursday. Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese received the other.

“I am incredibly honored to be named Rookie of the Year, but more than that I am grateful to everyone who supported me this past season: my family and friends, my teammates, the Fever organization and everyone who cheered us on. season. I am so proud of what we have accomplished and so excited about what the future holds,” Clark said in a statement.

Clark, the No. 1 overall pick out of Iowa, averaged 19.2 points and a career-best 8.4 assists per game while helping the WNBA set attendance records and gain mainstream attention. She struggled a bit early in the season, but found her feet and was an All-Star starter. The unanimous AP Rookie of the Year led the Fever to the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and a 20-20 record after a 1-8 start.

“I am a hard student. I feel like I had a solid year,” Clark said after the Fever were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. “For me, the nice thing about it is that I feel like I’m just scratching the surface and I’m the one who decides everything I do. I know I want to help this franchise. … I know there’s a lot of room for me to continue to improve, so that’s what excites me the most. I feel like I’m getting better and better.”

Clark wasn’t named to the U.S. Olympic team — a decision that disappointed her legions of fans — but she showed in the weeks that followed that she might have been helpful. The Fever guard averaged 24.7 points and 9.3 assists in her first 10 games after the Olympic break and led Indiana to an 8-2 record.

Clark was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month for August, was Player of the Week three times and Rookie of the Month four times. She recorded the first two triple-doubles by a rookie in WNBA history, set a league single-game record with 19 assists and became the first rookie to have at least 30 points and 10 assists in a game.

Clark led the league with 122 three-pointers, ranked second with 90.6% accuracy from the free throw line and averaged 5.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals. She set a league single-season record with 337 assists and set a rookie record of 769 points and 122 made three-pointers.

Reese averaged 13.6 points and 13.1 rebounds for the Sky.

Off the court, Clark, Reese and their fellow rookies were a ratings and attendance gain for the WNBA. Six different league TV partners set viewership records for the most-watched WNBA game this year. All of these games contain the Fever.

Indiana led the league both at home and on the road. The fever averaged 17,036 at home and more than 15,000 on the road. Four teams moved home games to larger arenas as Indiana came to town to accommodate more fans.

Despite Indiana’s blowout loss to Connecticut in Game 1Fans tuned in as the game drew an average of 1.8 million viewers, according to ESPN, making it the WNBA’s most-watched playoff game since the 2000 finals. It was the most-watched playoff game on ESPN ever, despite battling the N.F.L.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball