Saturday, March 7, 2015

An open letter to the MEAC: Norfolk State's Rae Corbo belong on your first team

Dear MEAC coaches and sports information directors,

With your conference tournament just days away, you are no doubt distracted by all that leads up to March Madness. That's why we are writing to alert you to a glaring mistake on your all-conference women's basketball team.

Surely, certainly, you didn't mean for obvious-Player-of-the-Year candidate Rae Corbo to be slighted onto the second team.

We  know we don't have to remind you about the type of season the Norfolk State redshirt senior guard has put together for the Spartans who were picked to finish eighth in the conference but sit at fourth with an 11-5 mark. In case your notes aren't handy on Corbo:

*Corbo averaged a team-best 21.1 ppg, second in the MEAC and 17th in the nation.
*Corbo torched opponents with 15 20-point games this season (nine of those were MEAC foes), and her 37 points against Marshall was a Division I school record.
*Corbo leads the MEAC in FT percentage (87.9), which is 15th in the nation
*Her 37.7 3-point percentage ranks her third in the MEAC
*Corbo was MEAC Player of the Week three times this season
*NSU broke a 17-game losing streak to Hampton behind Corbo's 22.

While we certainly don't have a quibble with Hampton's Malia Tate-DeFreitas being named Player of the Year given the fine season of the MEAC scoring leader, we have our heads scratching about this:

*Conference runner-up Savannah State has two players, Ezinne Kalu and Jasmine Norman, on the first team. Kalu, ranked seventh in the NCAA in steals, and averaging 16.7 ppg and the first Tiger to reach the 2,000-point mark for her career, we have no issue with. Norman, as described by the Savannah State sports information director in a release, is "a true sixth woman." She averaged 11 ppg off the bench. A player off any bench get first-team all-conference honors over Corbo? Seriously?

*While we have nothing against Delaware State's Tierra Hawkins, her 16.7-point average along with 6.9 rpg does not change that the Hornets are 2-14 and in the MEAC cellar. Hats off to her .546 FG percentage and her 11 double-doubles, we'd give the nod to Corbo here given that nobody Norfolk State emerging as a conference heavyweight this season.

We'd like to call Corbo's omission an oversight, but quite simply it's an egregious error and a disservice to a kid who's put together a first-team type of season that made her a candidate for Player of the Year.

We doubt anybody did anything on purpose here, but this much we know. Rae Corbo belongs on the MEAC first team. It's a shame the MEAC coaches and sports information directors didn't afford her the credit she deserves,

Sincerely,

LadySwish

P.S. We agree with you on this much. NSU's Kayla Roberts is the Rookie of the Year.


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