Sports Odd & Ends
Eric Curry was doing his job to assist make sure the recent five-day, Big Ten women’s basketball tournament, held here for the primary time, ran as easily as possible and provided a positive experience for everybody who attended.
The 24-year-old Memphis native and University of Minnesota grad is in his first yr of a two-year Big Ten fellowship program, working within the commissioner’s office.
“I’m within the operations department,” explained Curry on his role working on the varied sponsored league events. “That’s the football championship game [and] each basketball tournaments,” he added.
I almost didn’t recognize Curry as he and fellow former Gophers Kiera Buford, Lea B. Olsen, and Crystal Flint-Holloman ran a youth basketball clinic on the tournament’s second day on the Lifetime health club, downstairs within the Downtown basketball arena. Later, all of them spoke to the kids on various topics, and Curry definitely has the experience to talk on the subject of perseverance.
He first got here to campus as a highly touted recruit in 2016, but only played 4 seasons—he missed two seasons, 2017-18 and 2019-20—because of knee injuries.
Yet he recovered and finished his Gopher profession last season—Ben Johnson’s first—with 104 games played and 25 starts, together with 555 points and 462 rebounds. His final collegiate game got here eventually March’s Big Ten tournament when he posted 10 points and a career-high six assists.
Curry also earned two degrees, a bachelor’s in communications studies and a master’s in youth development leadership. Now he’s hoping that his current internship will higher prepare him for a post-athletic profession.
“It’s a brand new journey for me,” admitted Curry, in his first season not playing basketball. “The one thing I’ve known all my life is basketball. So transitioning to the business side of sports has been amazing. It’s an ideal learning experience. It’s been amazing.”
Working within the league office, “I desired to get on the opposite side of [basketball], see how the whole lot goes on the opposite side of it,” said Curry. “I definitely would say it’s preparing me…to get back into the basketball world and be on the business side of basketball as a GM or assistant GM sooner or later.”
Reliford a top guard
Recent Hope native Jayla Reliford, a sophomore guard at Park (Ariz) University, was named honorable mention all-conference. The MSR featured her earlier this yr when she led the nation in assists. Reliford finished third among the many nation’s guards.
Black coaches recognized
About 20 coach-of-the-year awards this season have gone to Black men and girls coaches: WBB—Billi Chambers (Iona), Niele Ivey (Notre Dame), Kim McNeill (East Carolina), Brenita Jackson (Texas Wesleyan), Jeff Cammon (LBSU), Terence McCutcheon (Catawba (NC) College); MBB—Shaka Smart (Marquette), Jerry Stackhouse (Vanderbilt), Rodney Terry (Texas), Larry Vickers (Norfolk State), Dennis Gates (Missouri), Jeff Capel (Pitt), Jerome Tang (Kansas State), Speedy Claxton (Hofstra). Chris Lowery, Northwestern assistant coach, was named Assistant Coach of the Yr.
Finally…
This yr’s Big Ten WBB tournament held here in Minneapolis earlier this month set latest highs for attendance, viewership and merchandise sales:
4,890 — record first-round session attendance
8,577 — record attendance for a quarterfinal session
9,375 — record attendance for a semifinal
9,505 — record attendance for a single session or game
47,923 — record total attendance over five days
11.6 percent— increase in tourney merchandise sales over last yr
380,000 — record viewership of Iowa-Maryland semifinals
745,000 — record viewership of title game on ESPN platforms