Nat'l Women's Basketball Report: A&M, Central Arkansas' Megan Herbert, and a UCF double-double
George Rodecker, National Columnist
___________________________
John Wooden once said,
“To me, the best pure basketball I see today … is
among the better women’s teams.”
Welcome back!
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The Worthy 20
Here’s yet another very deserving player who unbelievably missed the cut for the Wooden Watch 30, but makes our Wooden Worthy 20.
Meet Megan Herbert, junior forward at Central
Arkansas University. Megan’s accomplishments are most
certainly Watch worthy. She’s been honored as the
2009-2010 Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and in her
sophomore season she was selected as the 2010-2011 Southland
Conference Player of the Year. Megan’s made the
Southland Conference first team both of her seasons at Central
Arkansas and has certainly shown that the best is still yet to
come. She is the only player in Southland history to lead the
conference in both scoring AND rebounding twice.
She already has 47 career double-doubles: a Southland Conference record, and she’s only halfway through her college playing days. The former Miss Basketball in Arkansas (2009) has an incredible high school and collegiate resume and stacks up favorably against the nation’s elite players.
Comparing 2010-2011 stats of Megan Herbert versus Stanford forward Chiney Ogwumike is rather telling.
Minutes
played
Herbert 32.0
Ogwumike 23.6
Rebounds
Herbert 10.6
Ogwumike 8.0
Free throw
shooting percentage
Herbert 78.5
Ogwumike 62.6
Three point
shooting
Herbert 20.7
Ogwumike 00.0
Points per
Game
Herbert 17.2
Ogwumike 11.7
Megan Herbert, junior forward for Central Arkansas University, certainly has accomplished enough ALREADY in her college career to certainly be mentioned in the same conversation as the best of the best players in the nation.
Overtime
I’m a sucker for heart-tug stories – always have been – always will be. So when a series of press releases, all from the same University hit my email box recently, I began to look into what was going on.
It seems the ladies at the University of Central Florida (UCF),
the second largest university in the nation, and coached by
Joi Williams, have been rather busy since their
successful 2010-2011 season ended at 22-11 with an NCAA Tournament
opening round loss to Ohio State... but only after cutting down the
Conference USA nets in Memphis after winning the tourney.
The Komen Central Florida Race for the (Breast Cancer) Cure took place on the Kinghts' Orlando, Florida campus in early October. The women’s team hosted and maintained a children’s tent – allowing the parents to walk or run the 5K event. One of the runners was UCF WBB Associate Head Coach Greg Brown. The race truly hit home, as Coach Bob Starkey's wife Sherie is a survivor of breast cancer. “For the UCF women’s basketball family to accept my wife and I on that personal level that quickly, it just speaks volumes,” he said.
Then I learn that the ladies participated in the Alzheimer’s Association Walk to End Alzheimer’s one mile trek to raise awareness of this horrid disease. Many team members have family or close friends touched by Alzheimer’s and that was likely one of the biggest motivations to participate.
But the influence of Tennessee Head Coach Pat Summitt became apparent as UCF Associate Head Coach Greg Brown stated: “Anything we can do to help honor her and her toughness through this, we’re more than happy to do it”.
And finally there’s the story detailing the trials, tribulations and triumphs of former Knight Angelica Mealing.
Get me some tissues – QUICK!
Mealing, who exhausted her eligibility last spring, received the Courageous Student-Athlete Award at the National Consortium for Academics and Sports Giant Step awards dinner. Noteworthy was that her mother Laurie, who has led a troubled life including stints behind bars, was in the audience that night.
Laurie Mealing had battled drugs and was dealing with her own demons when Angelica headed off to Central Florida where she largely became a recluse when away from the basketball courts and the classroom. “I was always scared that one day I would get a call saying she overdosed”.
She quickly became a mediocre student and a bit of a
challenge on the basketball court, but Head Coach Joi Williams
spend a ton of time on Angelica’s case and didn’t back
down nor quit on her player.
At the beginning of her third year at UCF, the light finally went on for Angelica and she got her grades and basketball game on the right track.
There was to be more adversity in her senior year as she tore her ACL and was done for the year/career after knee surgery in February.
But by now, the mature Mealing finally had the understanding and commitment that perhaps others saw in her before she herself did. She stayed a part of the team cheering from the bench on crutches and was there when the Knights captured the Conference USA Tournament title in Memphis last spring. Her teammates asked her to accept the championship trophy for them and then insisted that she be the first one to cut down the nets.
Her playing career now over, Mealing was coerced into applying to the prestigious DeVos Sports Business Management program after believing that she wasn’t good enough for the program.
Among the things that got her accepted into the program was an essay she wrote detailing the difficulties of her childhood.
She shared the essay with her mother Laurie who came to Orlando to see her presented with the Courageous Student-Athlete Award.
Laurie Mealing is working hard to get her life back together.
Angelica Mealing now has her bachelor’s degree (2010) and is on schedule to collect her master’s from the DeVos School in 2012.
To say that she overcame hardships that would have derailed most others, is an understatement.
To say she has found herself and found her way is to celebrate her journey.
Double Overtime
The reigning WBB National Champion Texas A&M Aggies, as is
customary, visited the White House recently and the
grandfather/Head Coach Gary Blair decided to bring
his grandson Logan along for what could very well be a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet President Barack
Obama.
Knowing that the seven year-old was missing a day of school, President Obama wrote Logan an excuse note for school on White House stationary. That’s quite the excuse letter! The original has been kept by the family who photocopied it and turned in the copy in.
And speaking of Gary Blair, he’ll be inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in February joining previously inducted WBB Coach’s Jody Conradt, Kim Mulkey and Marsha Sharp.
The reasons are pretty evident for a Texas treasure as well as a national treasure. 596 career wins supported by a National Championship, two Final Fours, three Elite Eights, eight Sweet 16’s, 17 NCAA Tournament appearances and 20 seasons of more than 20 wins as well as winning seasons in 25 of his 26 years as a Division I head coach.
Since his arrival in 2003 Gary Blair has guided A&M to a sparkling 188-79 record - good for a .704 winning percentage.
He’s in more Halls of Fame and received more Coach of the Year recognitions than we have space here to detail. Suffice it to say that Blair, among those in the know, is a very well known and successful college basketball coach.
And to think that most of America only discovered this coaching great in the NCAA WBB title game this past April.
Fans of WBB have known all along what the occasional followers of WBB are just starting to learn - Gary Blair is a head coaching giant in the entire NCAA world.
Winning the National Championship only gave him the national spotlight he so long ago earned.
Last thought on the way out
Here’s an interesting breakdown of the initial (BCS?) AP top 25 poll by conference:
$$$$$$$ BIG EAST – 7 teams
$$$$$ ACC – 5 teams
$$$$ SEC – 4 teams
$$$$ Big 12 – 4 teams
$$$ PAC12 – 3 teams
$$ BIG 10 – 2 teams
All other conferences – 0 teams
Huh? Hmmm. Oh, okay, I get it!
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