Monday, April 2, 2012

Oklahoma State Cowgirls' fantastic forward in line for another award

What a great basketball season for the Big 12 Conference.
Kansas plays Kentucky tonight for the NCAA men's basketball championship.
Baylor faces Notre Dame on Tuesday night for the NCAA women's basketball championship. If the Bears win, they will be the first team to win a basketball championship with a 40-0 record.
Oklahoma State won the WNIT championship on Saturday to complete a tragedy-to-triumph season.
Tuesday morning, Oklahoma State super frosh Liz Donohoe will learn if she will be the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's 2011-12 Women's National Freshman of the Year.
Donohoe was selected to the WNIT all-tournament team after OSU's 75-68 victory over James Madison in the tournament finals.
Donohoe was one of five players placed on the Association's watch list on March 1.  The four others on the watch list are Duke forward Elizabeth Williams, Kentucky guard Bria Goss, Connecticut forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Tennessee point guard Ariel Massengale.
The other nominees received more national exposure because their teams played in the NCAA tournament with UConn in the Final Four and Tennessee in a regional finals. Results from the WNIT were difficult to find as ESPN pretty much ignored the tournament, and the CBS Sports Channel that televised the WNIT finals isn't available on basic cable and is a pricy upgrade on satellite TV.
Donohoe played big for OSU all season.
She played an average of 32.8 minutes per game — second on the club. She led the team in scoring with 446 points and tied for first in scoring average at 13.1 per game. She led OSU in rebounding grabbing 264 boards this season for a 7.8 rebound per game average. Donohoe and point guard Tiffany Bias were the only two Cowgirls who played and started all 34 games.
Some of the players watch-list nominees grabbed more rebound (Williams. 259) or scored more points (Mosqueda-Lewis, 15.0 points per game) but no one combined scoring and rebounding like Donohoe.
Donohoe already has captured the Big 12 Freshman of the Year title. Don't know if she will win it on Tuesday, but she is certainly deserving.