Women's Nat'l Basketball Report: Spencer Shines, one-on-one with Skylar Diggins, Worthy 20 and more...
George Rodecker, National Women's Columnist
John Wooden once said,
“To me, the best pure basketball I see today … is
among the better women’s teams.”
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Back after a short hiatus, so let’s make up for lost time.
But before we begin this week, we start with a sad note as we pause to honor the memory of Oklahoma State head coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna who died in a plane crash on November 17th that claimed the lives of two others. Budke and Serna were on a recruiting trip. Oklahoma State beat Coppin State 59-35 in their first game back after two postponed contests, but this season will be an emotional roller-coaster ride for everyone involved in OSU Women’s Basketball. Our heartfelt sympathies and our prayers go out to the Budke and Serna families, as well as the Oklahoma State basketball team and the OSU community.
The Worthy 20
After two seasons at Cal-Santa Barbara Ashlee Brown transferred to
Utah State, and she has made her mark on the Aggie program in a big
way. Yet the 6-foot Chandler, Arizona native is on the
outside looking in at the Wooden Watch 30.
Last season Brown’s stat line read like an All-American, and when compared to Lynetta Kizer of Maryland, you wonder why she didn’t make the cut as well. Brown wins the ppg battle 15.2 to 13.2. She outrebounded Kizer 8.4 to 7.8. Brown was the more accurate of the two from the floor: 50.2% to 45.5%, and her assist numbers per game dwarfs Kizer 2.8 to 0.9.
After five games this season, Brown, a senior, is averaging 21.0 points, 10.2 rebounds while shooting over 80% from the free throw line and over 50% from the floor.
Kizer, through four games, is scoring 16.8 points and garnering 5.0 rebounds per game. It's likely Kizer is most deserving of being on the Wooden Watch, but what about Ashlee Brown?
Shouldn’t she be right up there with Kizer?
Overtime: A Special Interview
One-on-One with... Skylar Diggins
“Like candy canes and milkshakes!”
If you spend enough time interviewing college basketball players
you get an idea of how much time they actually spend in class.
Every once in a blue moon (I’ve been interviewing basketball players and coaches for over 25 years now), you get blown away.
Blown away by a player possessing enough maturity, poise and vocabulary to rival that of accomplished public speakers.
Skylar Diggins, junior guard for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish is just that player. The way she comported herself during the interview nearly derailed me from asking questions. Now I get why she plays with such composure. She’s that composed!
During the BIG EAST Women’s Basketball Media Day in New York City one month ago, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with one of the two faces (Brittany Griner, the other) of Women’s College Basketball this season and discuss a variety of topics.
CCT: Skylar, what do you make of all this media attention?
Skylar Diggins: “I never thought about how much power the social media could have. Twitter and other outlets have a power I would never have expected. If you look back five or six years ago, none of this mattered. Now you put a tweet out there and if you say the wrong thing it goes viral in a flash. It is, however, a direct connection between yourself and your fans, and that’s the reason I got involved in Twitter.
I’m in college now and I can use the social media to keep up with my old AAU teammates as well as my high school friends. And then it [Skylar’s social media following] started growing and growing. I never thought it [Twitter] would get to 124,000 like it is now [Skylar’s Facebook “fan club page” numbers nearly 41,000]. And to be able to say something and get messages back telling me that I’m such an inspiration and you changed my life. I never thought that this would become what it is.
The media stuff, for what ever reason, is not just all about basketball stuff sometimes. This is not a job for me, I just try to be myself with all of it, to take it all in and understand that what people expect of me, how people look at me is less than what I expect of myself, and I just have to remember that no matter what - I carry around with me – Notre Dame. I carry around with me Coach McGraw. I carry around with me my parents, my family, and my friends. I carry around with me my faith. I care about how people perceive me. That’s all conscious in my mind at all times. I think my parents, my family, Coach McGraw, the support staff at Notre Dame have all done a great job of keeping me grounded. All of this attention just humbles me. And it gives me the incentive to improve. I handle things one situation at a time, but also remembering the people who helped get me to where I am now. To keep them in my circle. My circle, though, is very small.
CCT: What kind of pressure will you put on yourself this season after reaching the NCAA Championship game and not winning?
Skylar Diggins: A lot. No one could put any more pressure on me than I put on myself. We lost. No one said Notre Dame-champions. We were bridesmaids. It’s a lot about what you are able to gain from it. We do not want to have that feeling again.
It’s like in my freshman year where we played Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 and lost to them. We weren’t going to lose to Oklahoma again in the Sweet 16 again this past season [The Fighting Irish beat Oklahoma 78-53 in the rematch last April]. With us having that Final Four and Championship game experience, it’s a great incentive; we know what it takes to get there. So now we can use that experience to help the freshmen out, because we got that experience. We had three freshmen last year who got that experience in their first year. For them it was like candy canes and milkshakes! But it’s not all that easy. I think this is going to be a great year for basketball this season and... a lot of people are going to be watching us. We are going to have more attention on us. There’s already a lot of buzz around college basketball this year, everyone is just so ready to get started and with the talent spreading around like it is more teams know that this is the year they can win it. There’s no clearly defined favorite. It’s not UConn, then everybody else. There are about 20 teams that could win this years championship. And because of that you have to be on top of your game. People say we have a target on our backs and teams want to beat you, so we have to be particularly ready.
CCT: How old were you when you decided you wanted to stay home, being a South Bend native, and attend Notre Dame?
Skylar Diggins: It actually took me to the very last night to decide between Notre Dame and Stanford. I didn’t make the decision until 10:00pm the very last day of signing. It took me longer than it should have as I look back on it now. I always knew that I had the love and passion for Notre Dame like I did with no other school. I grew up around here, I grew up here when Ruth Riley was playing for Notre Dame [Riley led the 2000-2001 Fighting Irish to the National Championship in a classic 68-66 win over Purdue], and I went to a lot of games that year. Notre Dame is very close to my heart.
CCT: And because you choose to stay home you get to play in front of your family?
Skylar Diggins: I love that I can play in front of my family and my friends. I think I know everybody who lives in South Bend; I think I’ve met everybody at least one time.
CCT: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. Good luck this season – Your Notre Dame team is my prediction to be cutting down the nets in Denver on April 3rd.
Skylar Diggins: Thank you.
Skylar Diggins versus Brittany Griner: The POY Battle
We’re going to have some fun here analyzing and comparing the play of arguably the two best players in WBB right now: Skylar Diggins and Brittney Griner. We’ll take a week by week look at the accomplishments of each and share thoughts with you. So here goes –
Obviously those following WBB are acutely aware that Baylor hosted Notre Dame on November 20th and won the No. 1/ No. 2 matchup 94-81. In that game Griner went off for 32 points 14 boards and 5 blocks. Previously she tallied 19, 8, and 3 against Chattanooga 18, 14, and 6 against UCLA 31, 10, and 5 versus Yale and in the celebrated matchup against Tennessee she added 26, 6, and 7.
Diggins dropped 14 points, 7 assists, & 6 steals in the opener against Indiana State. She then added 22, 6, and 4 versus Hartford. In the Baylor game Diggins delivered 27, 7, and 1. Against USC she netted 22 3, and 5. In a big win over Duke Diggins scored 19 points, had 3 assists and a huge 8 rebounds.
So far, here’s the ledger:
Brittany Griner– 24.4 ppg, 11.8 rpg, 5.4 bpg with
70 FT%, 66.7 FG% in 28.4 mpg
Skylar Diggins– 20.8 ppg, 5.0 apg, 3.2 spg,
with 87.2 FT%, 51.8 FG% in 29.8 mpg
The obvious conclusion is that Griner and Diggins are the keys to their teams.
So far it’s a toss up, but next week we’ll look at a smaller sample size – the games played from November 28th through December 3rd.
Last thoughts on the way out
There have been plenty of special items of note that have recently caught my eye including UConn’s NCAA record setting 89th consecutive home win against Dayton 78-38 to capture the World Vision Classic Championship.
Over in Division III Nancy Fahey has coached Washington University
in Saint Louis to five NCAA Championships since 1986 and
they’ve won at least 19 games in all of her 24 seasons at the
helm of the Bears. Now she has captured yet another lofty
distinction. Fahey has become the fastest coach to 600 wins
in NCAA history. And she did it in only 706 games. I
did the math for you – that’s 600-106 for a staggering
.850 winning percentage. Congrats Coach!
Tajama Ngongba in her 4th year at Radford has her squad off to a blazing 4-1 start. The Highlanders are led by junior guard Da'Naria Erwin Spencer who is averaging 20.2 points per contest and is dishing out nearly 7 helpers per game.
Over in the PAC-12, Oregon’s Amanda Johnson is averaging 26.7 points and 14.0 rebounds for the rather mighty Ducks, and the Ogwumike sister act for Stanford is averaging a combined 36.8 points and 21.0 boards per contest. Makes you wonder if there’s any more at home!
Cal-Poly’s Kristina Santiago, the Big West Player of the
Year in 2009-2010, before a season ending injury sidelined her for
all but one game last season is certainly picking up right where
she left off as she dropped a career high 36 points and tied her
career best with 15 rebounds against San Francisco. Less than
a week later she dropped in 27 points and set a new career high
with 23 boards against Fresno State.
Finally – to be filed in the “what if” folder comes this interesting nugget. Delaware’s Elana Delle Donne is leading the nation in scoring at a 31.7 clip. I keep thinking that if she had stayed at Connecticut...
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Photography Credits -
Photo 1: Erwin Spencer – Credit: Tim Cowie
Photo 2: Ashlee Brown - Credit: Ryan Talbot
Photo 3: Skylar Diggins - Michael Bennett, Lighthouse
Imaging
Photos 4 and 5 Coach Nancy Fahey – Credit:
Danny Reise, WUSTL Photo Services
Photo 6 Kristina Santiago – Credit: Cal Poly Media
Relations and Matt Brown Photography
