Making U.S. team tall order for ex-BYU two-sport star
Of all the female athletes I have interviewed over the years, the one I look up to most is Jennifer Hamson.
She stands 6 feet 7 inches tall.
Jen Hamson is in Las Vegas this week, trying out for the U.S. women’s national basketball team during a minicamp at the Mendenhall Center on the UNLV campus.
She was the tallest one on the court Monday — Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who is 6-8, decided at the last minute not to participate.
Griner was arrested April 22 on suspicion of assault after a fight with her fiancee, a fellow WNBA player named Glory Johnson. Had Griner shown up to reject minicamp shots, there might have been a media circus afterward.
My take on Geno Auriemma, Team USA coach and also coach of a certain women’s basketball team called Connecticut, is that he is not terribly fond of a media circus, unless he was responsible for creating it.
So Hamson was the tallest one there, for those scoring in the bleachers after Geno Talented not only in basketball and volleyball, but also gymnastics
Bowl, and he chose the Crimson Tide over Arkansas, Auburn, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Tennessee and others.
But Tenpenny didn’t receive much playing time his first two seasons at Alabama. He rushed for 82 yards on 22 carries as a freshman and for 136 yards on 26 carries last season.
Getting Tenpenny, though, is a poten- tial game-changer for the Rebels. They have had mixed results with four-year transfers, but if Tenpenny plays up to the expectations he took to Alabama, he would provide a major boost to a program trying to find its footing under Sanchez, who is in his first year.
UNLV’s running game needs the upgrade after ranking last in the Mountain West last season with 129.2 yards per game.
Sanchez hopes at least one of the incoming freshmen, Xzaviar Campbell (511, 220) or Lexington Thomas (5-9, 170), contributes right away. Junior Keith Whitely (5-9, 185), who rushed for 504 yards last season and averaged 4.3 per carry, will head into training camp in August atop the depth chart. Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal. com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @ markanderson65.