Rebound

The Baltimore Sun's Don Markus recently penned a nice tribute to James Padgett's growth as a college basketball player under Coach Turgeon. With Alex Len, Pe'Shon Howard, Terrell Stoglin, Nick Faust, and Sean Mosley on the roster, Padgett's contributions can easily be taken for granted. I, like Markus, have very much enjoyed watching Padgett crash the boards at Comcast and it is nice to see his effort recognized in a mainstream publication.

But I'm back from Comcast this evening having witnessed a transcendent rebounding performance from Riverdale Baptist's Tianna Hawkins. The junior is averaging over ten rebounds a game this season and tonight Ms. Hawkins eclipsed a thirty-five year old team record by pulling down twenty-four rebounds against Wake Forest. Tianna grabbed her first twenty-three boards without much fanfare. Then the stadium's jumbotron informed fans that she had tied the team record after Maryland had pulled away, the game was largely over, and Tianna was on the bench:

"I asked the team if we should let her come back in and they unanimously said yes," Frese said. "That record has been in the record books for a very long time. It's special for us to be able to break records."

Now, we enjoyed the game and my daughters' had fun throughout, but the last minute and a half -- with Tianna trying to get one more board -- was the most compelling. In that short time, Tianna barely missed an offensive rebound after a missed free throw that slipped out of bounds, then elected to actually honestly finish a layup rather than play the ball off the rim to break the record cheaply, and then broke the record fair and square while her teammates bounded up and down off the bench.

We're about two-thirds of the way through the regular season and this has already been an amazing year for Maryland women's basketball; Tianna's phenomenal performance tonight was just another brick in that wall.