Premier Player Ionescu Voted AP Player of The Year

You don’t see many players dominate a sport like Oregon senior guard Sabrina Ionescu was able to in the Covid-19 shortened 2019-20 women’s college basketball season. Ionescu was named as the unanimous Associated Press Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, only the second player since the award was first given in 1995 to sweep all 30 votes after Breanna Stewart of UConn in 2016.

Ionescu also became just the eighth player to be named three times as an AP All-American after a career with the Ducks where she shattered records. This premier player became the first player in NCAA history – male or female – to post a career triple-double mark of over 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists.

It is this ability to do anything on the court to help her team win that characterized Ionescu’s tenure with the Ducks. There are many that believe Oregon would have been the favorites for the NCAA Championship this season if the games had been played, with Ionescu averaging 17.5 points, 9.1 assists, and 8.6 rebounds per game after returning to school to chase the NCAA title that had eluded her.

Oregon, with a 31-2 record, was the Pac-12 regular season and tournament champions when the season was cancelled. Head coach Kelly Graves called Sabrina “A transcendent basketball player” and “The ultimate leader.” These are the traits that Ionescu showed this year.

This premier player wasn’t happy with just being good enough at certain aspects of the game, she wanted to be the best in the country. That will to win – to know when to shoot and when to pass in a purely unselfish way – is what set her apart. Add in a drive and a work ethic that the late Kobe Bryant would have been proud of and you can see why Ionescu is the favorite to be taken with the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft this spring.

Ionescu is the prototypical basketball player. After completing her college chapter, she will be one WNBA player that young players can look up to and learn from with her ability to do literally anything she wants on the court.

Article by Premier Players

Big3 Basketball Ready To Entertain Fans With Premier Talent

Sports are an essential escape to the sometimes mundane march of everyday life. That is why the shutting down of sports as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak has been so hard for people to take. At a time where sports are needed to lift us emotionally, they are gone.

While the premier leagues in many sports will not return for an undisclosed period of time – albeit a period which doesn’t seem likely to be any time soon – there is one premier competition that is looking to get set up and bring sports to the American public as soon as this April.

The Big3 is a 3-on-3 basketball tournament that gained some traction last year as the premier competition of its type in the country. Big3 executives Josh Kwatinetz and Ice Cube have been in the entertainment business for over 30 years and they see both the opportunity to create something for themselves and – more importantly – a chance to entertain people in a way they think will help with everything the world is currently going through.

Their concept is certainly intriguing. Essentially the tournament would take place in a quarantined house somewhere in the LA area with 16 to 22 players involved. These players – who would only be allowed in after testing negative for Coronavirus – would then take place in something that would be part reality TV show and part premier competition for 3-on-3 basketball.

The Big Brother meets Big3 concept would have to pass some hurdles given the shelter-in-place order that has been announced in California, but the prospect of live sports is one that any American that enjoys competition would be happy to hear. The league lowered its age limit for its regular season from 27 to 22 in January and it would be very interesting to see which players would sign up and take part in a format that would – if this goes as reported – feature seven rounds of games with a player being eliminated after losing three times.

It is a watch-this-space situation – as is the entire sports world – but the sooner we can get sports back on TV (health permitting of course) the better.

Article by Premier Players

Curry Makes Biggest Impact Off The Basketball Court

We all know that Stephen Curry is one of the premier players on a basketball court in the world. The six-time All-Star and two-time NBA MVP winner has proven he is a player who will not rest on his laurels in his quest to keep getting better.

Curry is a player known for getting back into the gym early in the offseason. He has that drive and desire that all the greats find in their genetic make-up; that will to win and the need to improve on their skill set year after year to present new problems and new issues for defenders.

The three-time NBA champion knows that at 31-years-old he must keep pushing to get better. That is how Curry went from a player who was expected, in some circles, to be nothing more than a spot-up shooter in the NBA, to a player who can win games on his own with his passing and quickness off of the dribble.

Curry, though, also picks up his inspiration and his skills around the sport in other ways. One of those ways is that this premier player of basketball also loves to challenge himself with a round of golf.

When news broke that Curry had made a seven-figure donation to Howard University to bring back golf – and Division 1 golf at that – to its sports offerings, it raised a few eyebrows. Curry attended school at Davidson before making his NBA name on the West Coast, so news of him giving money to a small college in D.C. didn’t make much sense.

Curry got the idea to restart the golf program after meeting a Howard student named Otis Ferguson who passed up on furthering his golfing career to attend Howard, a school that did not have a golf program at the time. Curry, intrigued by Ferguson and his life story, decided to bring the program back to life.

Curry played golf in high school, and fans often see him on the pro/am and celebrity golf scenes. Golf is a sport he cares about and one that has impacted his ability to be a premier player in basketball.

“Golf is a sport that has changed my life in ways that are less tangible, but just as impactful,” Curry said about the imminent donation in a press release. “It’s a discipline that challenges your mental wherewithal from patience to focus, and is impossible to truly master, so when you hear about these passionate student-athletes who have the talent but don’t have a fair shot at the game, it’s tough. I feel really honored to play a small role in the rich history of Howard University.”

This act of charity is not the first time Curry has supported others, and it will not be the last. He is making an impact in ways that people will not only remember him for his greatness on the court but his greatness as a person.