Stanford Basketball Alums in the News

Before the 2015 Stanford Women’s Basketball Season starts, (or as C and R call it, the era after the Ogwumikes), we wanted to highlight some notable accomplishments of Stanford basketball alums. Well, as it so happens, we wanted to honor two of them, both with the last name Ogwumike.

Okay, not that we want to exclude anyone, but older sister Nneka and younger Chiney have been on a rocket ship of a ride. And it’s funny, because younger sister Chiney has always followed in Nneka’s footsteps.

Chiney followed her to Stanford, where the sisters were an unstoppable dynamic duo who had court ESP and always knew where the other was, or were rebounding each other’s misses. They also took Stanford to two Final Fours together, and in Nneka’s case, two before Chiney and Chiney got one more after Nneka graduated.

In Nneka’s senior year, she worked on the transition to the WNBA, working on an outside shot and playing away from the basket. She was the number one pick in the WNBA and won rookie of the year honors.
Chiney also followed that blueprint, working on scoring away from the basket (although her jump shot is a little flat and not all there). Her hard work rewarded her with the number one pick in the WNBA, the first sisters to accomplish that in the WNBA, and the second pair of siblings since Peyton and Eli Manning did it in the NFL. Oh, they also were the first sisters to play in the same WNBA All Star game. And they ended up guarding each other!

So it is no surprise that Chiney also won Rookie of the Year honors. C and R just want to point out that…well, that is so hard to do! She was just a few weeks out of Stanford when she reported to the Connecticut Sun in the wake pf Tina Charles demanding a trade (Ciney had to get special permission to miss a game to attend the Stanford graduation ceremony.) In just four short months she was selected for the All-Star game and kept up against the best in the world to win Rookie of the Year barely six months removed from college. That is so tremendous.

So Nneka didn’t take the time after the WNBA. In fact, both Nneka and Chiney were invited to the Team USA training camp to try out for the World Championship team. Alas, only Nneka was chosen (Chiney’s day will come), and she helped Team USA win the Gold Medal in the Worlds that was held in Turkey.

Not a bad few months for these two Stanford alums.

Looking forward to 2014-15 season and seeing who will make history.

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