This was true until Estella Moschkau announced she was graduating early and grad transferring to Wisconsin. When that happened, in theory there was a second scholly open for Carrington, but she chose to leave anyway. She had seemed settled on that even before Moschkau's announcement, however, so it's possible once the horse left the barn it was too late to close the doors.
Some Stanford fans are speculating as to whether she sat our her senior season on purpose to preserve a grad transfer year, because that was more or less what happened with Marta Sniezek, whose thumb injury always seemed sketchy and who was immediately ready to play starter minutes at ND as soon as she transferred with little sign of lasting injury. So it's possible Carrington's knee was fine for at least the latter part of last season, and she simply decided she wanted to preserve eligibility. It's notabel that she stopped playing 1 game short of risking losing eligibility (she played in 5 games), and the coaches were VERY touchy when asked about her injury status all season.
I was interested in your takes on this situation. A couple of things come to mind:
- Senior seasons on The Farm can get funky, not just with Ms. Carrington and Sniezek, but I remember that Lili Thomson also chose not to play her senior year, although she was allowed to finish out her degree. She then, of course, then grad transferred to ND.
- Carrington's tough. She and Kiana Williams were giving the Irish fits (33-26 lead at halftime) in the NCAA Elite Eight game in Chicago. That slash and take it to the hoop style was hurting the Irish big time. (If I recall, the ND zone only tightend up when frosh Abby Prohaska came in. Not only did she play tough D, she also nailed a 3. Of course, Jackie Young got hot, too.)
- On one hand, it could look like Carrington is trying to either play for a championship and/or polish things up before the WNBA draft. However, I'd think that Stanford would have just as strong a chance at making it's way to the Final 4 as any of the other teams: Oregon loses its big 3; UConn is young; and Baylor loses some key players, most notably Lauren Cox.
Plus, as far as the resume shiner: Geno, Kim and Kelly all have delivered multiple draft picks as of late, but last time I checked, Tara does a pretty good job with player development. I'm still scratching my head....
On a totally different subject, how is Haley Jones' recovery doing? Or does Stanford keep radio silence on that? I very much hope she's doing AOK and look forward to her return.
