Browsing articles from "August, 2014"

Chiney Ogwumike's Winning Character Shaped By Relationship With Sister Nneka

Aug 19, 2014   //   by admin   //   Basketball  //  Comments Off on Chiney Ogwumike's Winning Character Shaped By Relationship With Sister Nneka

Connecticut Sun v Los Angeles SparksWith Round 2 of the Ogwumike battle about to commence, Chiney Ogwumike confidently moved through the Connecticut Sun layup line, as her best friend and older sister, Nneka, stretched at midcourt. More important than a matchup of star siblings, it would be a game between two teams desperately fighting for playoff berths.

A few hours later, 22-year-old Chiney was finished carrying a young team on her back for 37-plus minutes. Despite the rookie’s brilliance, especially in the second half where she scored 17 points, her inexperienced squad squandered a six-point lead with 29.8 seconds left, only to lose by a single point. The Connecticut Sun forward recorded her 13th double-double (23 points, 12 rebounds) of the season, good for third in the league, yet still came away unsatisfied.

“Ugh, I just want to punch her in the face right now,” Chiney joked after the loss, referring to her sister Nneka.

She vented with a smile on her face, but wasn’t able to hide an underlying sense of exasperation. Read more >>

BIO

Aaron Fischman is a sports writer, editor and multimedia journalist, who currently hosts the On the NBA Beat podcast, a weekly interview show he co-founded with fellow USC alums Loren Lee Chen and brother Joshua Fischman in advance of the 2015-16 NBA season. On the podcast, he and the crew interview some of the league’s best reporters on their particular beat. Fischman is also currently hard at work on his first book, a nonfiction baseball story. Read more.