Even though the NCAA tournament is over, there's a lot of basketball to write about with the 2012 WNBA Draft approaching on April 16.
However, we take a brief break from draft talk to take stock of some other more unfortunate news making headlines: NCAA violations at Baylor and Eastern Michigan.
- Geeves of Hustle Belt dug a bit deeper into Eastern Michigan's violations that were committed by recently-resigned women's basketball coach AnnMarie Gilbert. He offers an excellent summary of the full report of the violations and EMU's self-imposed sanctions and wonders if she deserves to coach again given that likely knowingly broke rules and persuaded players to lie about at least one incident. Read more >>>
- SB Nation Dallas has a storystream up to follow Baylor's violations, which Jessica Lantz described yesterday from the women's basketball perspective. The self-imposed damage to the women's program appears to be two women's basketball scholarship, but as documented at SBN Dallas, it would appear the men's program might face some bigger problems down the line. Read more >>>
- Mark C. Moore of Our Daily Bears added further reaction to the news of Baylor's NCAA violations, detailing the entirety of the damage the men's and women's basketball programs will suffer. As an interesting twist, Moore notes that it was Brittney Griner's father who initially reported impermissable contact to the NCAA, thus triggering the investigation. Read more >>>
- Marian Cortesi of the Stanford Fast Break Club posted a great summary of all of Nneka Ogwumike's accomplishments in her four years playing for the Stanford Cardinal and it's impressive. So impressive that it led Examiner writer Jake Curtis to wonder if Ogwumike is the best Stanford player ever, a project that I hope to add some statistical insight in the coming weeks. Read more >>>
- The NACWAA released its list of 25 nominees for its Title IX Trailblazer Tribute Contest and although I posted the Dayton Flyers' entry yesterday, it's probably worth taking a look at the informal historical archive created by the other 24 programs as well. Read more >>>
- On to some draft-related news, I received an email in response to our statistical list of draft prospects asking about how 5-foot-11 Missouri State guard Casey Garrison might fit. She put up solid numbers, but this video of MSU's 76-62 win over Evansville is probably more impressive than the numbers: that was the first of two games in three days in which Garrison was shooting with her left hand due to to a sprained right thumb. In those two games, she scored 37 points on 14-for-23 shooting, including 4-for-6 from the 3-point line in addition to 12 rebounds, 8 assists, and 6 steals. She will likely be making her way into an upcoming draft prospect analysis and we are open to any other suggestions about prospects worth taking a look at. Watch Garrison score lefty >>>