I congratulate any of my readers who read that headline and didn't immediately have an aneurysm.
We're just a day away from No. 2 Stanford's Sweet Sixteen matchup against No. 3 NC State in Cameron Brink's hometown of Portland. My flight is in the morning—I have a work trip to Seattle this weekend and decided to take a little detour layover—and all I want in the world is to finish watching this Illinois v. Iowa State MBB matchup in peace.
But no peace shall I have... for Stanford WBB has won yet another slew of awards from enigmatic, acronym-ed organizations that I have a duty to report on.
WILL I EVER KNOW REST? I doubt it. The Cardinal women just keep winning, and so I, Sisyphus, must write.
Yesterday, Cameron Brink and Kiki Iriafen were both named Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) All-Region 5 honorees, making them both eligible for the organization's All-America team. Brink, being more decorated than a North Korean general, and Iriafen, single-handedly nuking a cyclone last week with a clean 41 and 16, are unsurprising honorees.
I could sit here and compliment the WBCA's intelligence, but it's more fun for me to scream WHERE IS BOSGANA ON THIS LIST?
Well it turns out Elena Bosgana, along with teammate Hannah Jump, were also honored in the past few days, disrespectfully piling on to my growing mountain of awards articles to scribe. The pair were named to the Academic All-District team by College Sports Communicators (CSC). Jump is now eligble for the publication's Academic All-American team, which will be voted upon in the coming weeks.
A bunch a nerds, the lot of them. If you're wondering, Bosgana is a Science, Technology, and Society (STS) major and Jump is a Psychology major.
Bosgana is literally from Athens, where they invented wisdom, so this all seems a little unfair.
Speaking of Psychology majors, remember Erica McCall? Bird? An absolute Stanford legend?
I actually watched Bird play at Stanford as a student. I was the Tree back when she and Karlie Samuelson went to the Final Four in Dallas. The former AP and WBCA All-American player is now a Stanford assistant coach, just winning, winning, winning. Move over Forbes, WBCA's got the new standard for a Thirty Under 30 roster:
You see it's better than Forbes' list because you can't pay to get yourself on this one.
McCall gets her flowers after a helluva college career and 5 years in the WNBA, and Stanford now has three coaches (Tar VanDerverr, Kate Paye, and now Erica McCall) winning some kind of season honor.
Talk about an endowment!
I'll be back at these keys to bring you coverage of the Sweet Sixteen tomorrow afternoon, 4:30pm PT in Portlandia—all the while crossing my fingers that the WBB team can take a break from season accolades just long enough for me to slither to bed and steal some sweet, sweet Zs.
--Fear The Me.