From Texas to Oregon
| Shamika Singleton leads
Concordia (Texas) in scoring, rebounds and steals while playing
just 24 minutes per game. Concordia (Texas) athletics photo |
It has been a crazy week for Shamika Singleton and her Concordia University teammates. The Tornados won their first American Southwest Conference tournament championship in program history and are in the middle of preparing for their first trip to the NCAA tournament.
Concordia is headed out west to play Lewis and Clark in the opening round of the tournament after Concorida stepped up defensively and earned 73-64 win over No. 22 Louisiana College, a team that came in averaging just under 90 points per outing.
Singleton was named the MVP of the tournament, scoring 13 points and pulling down 17 rebounds, and she said earlier this week that the whole experience has been a lot to take in during a short period of time.
“It has been overwhelming,” Singleton said. “This was one of our goals for the year and it feels good to accomplish it. No one said it was going to be easy, but to know we worked so hard for this and made it come true is very exciting.”
As for being named the MVP of the tournament, Singleton is honored to be recognized in that way.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Singleton said. “It’s a very exciting thing that people took notice, but at the same time, I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. We won this tournament as a team.”
No doubt teamwork was key. The Tornados needed that kind of effort to end a 40-game home win streak for the Wildcats. LaShanda Luckey did her part by pouring in 18 points and pulling down 13 rebounds. Termeka Canada came off the bench to torch the Wildcats for a career-high 20 points.
A year ago, it was different for Concordia. The Tornados went 14-10 in coach Rusty Rainbolt's first season since taking over after he had been an assistant coach at conference rival McMurry. This season, they are 23-4 and riding a wave of confidence into the NCAA tournament.
Balanced scoring as had a lot to do with the success of the Tornados. Singleton is clicking for 12.6 points per outing while Luckey is pumping in 10.6 points per game.
Seven other players are averaging at least four points per outing.
“We have more players that can step up and be a threat,” Singleton said. “We are a tougher team to prepare for this year and it’s part of the reason we are in this position.”
Singleton said she worked on becoming more than just an inside threat, shooting 46.7 percent from the field as a team and has even knocked down a couple of three-poin...
