Nov. 9, 2012

ESPN Preseason All-America Team

John R. Wooden Award official website

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford junior forward Chiney Ogwumike continued to receive national preseason recognition Friday, being named to ESPN's Preseason All-America Team as well as to the John R. Wooden Award's Preseason Top 30 List.

Ogwumike, also named an Associated Press Preseason All-American back on Oct. 30, was joined by Baylor's Brittney Griner and Odyssey Sims, Delaware's Elena Delle Donne and Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins on ESPN's five-woman team. The quintet was also among the six honored by the AP.

Friday's announcements also mark the second straight season in which Ogwumike has opened the year on the Los Angeles Athletic Club's Preseason Top 30 for the John R. Wooden Award. The list is chosen by a preseason poll of national college women's basketball media members. Last year, Ogwumike and older sister Nnemkadi were on the list.

These players and others who excel throughout the season will be evaluated and considered for January's midseason list and the official voting ballot released in March. The National Ballot consists of 20 top players who have proven to their universities that they are also making progress toward graduation and maintaining at least a cumulative 2.0 GPA. The Wooden Award All American Team, consisting of the nation's top five players, will be announced the week of the Final Four. The award itself will be announced in April 2013.

Ogwumike was one of two Pac-12 players named to the list, being joined by UCLA's Jasmine Dixon.

This season, Ogwumike is also on the 25-woman Wade Watch List for the Wade Trophy Player of the Year award.

Ogwumike and the fourth-ranked Cardinal open the 2012-13 season tonight at Maples Pavilion, where Stanford has won a national-best 79 straight games, hosting Fresno State at 7 p.m. PT. The Cypress, Texas native tuned up for the regular season by averaging 11.5 points and 7.5 rebounds over Stanford's exhibition victories over Corban University and Vanguard University last weekend.

Stanford's top returner is coming off of an All-America campaign in 2011-12. Ogwumike was named to the WBCA Coaches' All-America Team and the Associated Press All-America Second Team for a season in which she averaged 15.0 points and 10.1 rebounds a game, in addition to ranking fourth nationally with a 58.3 field-goal percentage. Her scoring and rebounding averages made her, along with her older sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike (22.5 ppg, 10.2 rpg), one of just five Cardinal players to average a double-double in a single season, joining Nicole Powell (2003-04), Jeanne Ruark (1979-80) and Kathy Murphy (1977-78).

She was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and to the All-Pac-12 Team following the regular season, thanks to her harassing defense which led to 45 blocks and 28 steals.

Entering this season Ogwumike is 35 points away from becoming the 33rd member of Stanford's 1,000-Point Club.

Stanford, 12-time defending Pac-12 champion and both the conference coaches' and media's pick to capture the 2012-13 Pac-12 title, closes this weekend's action Sunday at Santa Clara before heading to Hawaii for the Jack in the Box Rainbow Wahine Classic, where the Cardinal takes on No. 1 Baylor Nov. 16 in the first must-see game of the young campaign.