WALLACE STATE HOOPS: Lady Bearcat alum Smith named NJCAA Division I 2nd-team All-American

Published 7:50 pm Tuesday, March 31, 2015

HANCEVILLE — Wallace State women’s basketball sophomore Morgan Smith was named a National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division I second-team All-American on Tuesday, marking yet another significant achievement for the Lady Lions.

Smith, a Cullman High graduate, becomes the first Wallace State women’s basketball player to garner second-team recognition, the highest earned in program history.

“It was a season of a lot of firsts, and this is right there with it,” Wallace State women’s coach Ron Burdette said. “You’ve accomplished something if you earn an honorable mention selection, so for Morgan Smith to be named to the second team, it’s just a true testament to what she gets done on the court and in the classroom. It’s a great honor for Morgan individually, but I think it’s a great honor for us as a team simply because if we hadn’t played together as team during the season I don’t think this honor would have come.”

Smith, a 5-foot-10 forward, led Wallace State with an average of 16.1 points per game and was also first on the team in steals (93), second in assists (94) and third in rebounding (5.6 per game) as the Lady Lions finished 28-6 and made the program’s fifth NJCAA Division I national tournament appearance and first since 2011. Smith was also named the 2015 Alabama Community College Conference (ACCC) Player of the Year after finishing the regular season as the league’s second-leading scorer. Additionally, she led the conference in field goals (203) and 3-pointers (82) made.

No Smith 3-pointer was as clutch as the double-overtime buzzer-beater against 14th-ranked Shelton State in the ACCC Tournament semifinals. With Wallace State facing a two-point deficit with 4.7 seconds remaining, Smith grabbed the inbounds pass, pump faked and banked in an acrobatic 3-pointer as time expired, propelling the Lady Lions into the ACCC title game with an 89-88 victory. 

Wallace State finished as conference runner-up in Bay Minette but still advanced to the national tournament as an at-large zone bid qualifier. Smith, an ACCC All-Tournament selection, and the Lady Lions made program history once they hit the court in Salina, Kansas.

Wallace State, seeded No. 19, upset No. 11 Eastern Arizona in convincing fashion, winning 87-59 and collecting the program’s first opening-round tournament victory. Smith tallied her sixth double-double (19 points and 11 rebounds) of the season in the triumph.

Wallace State was eliminated in the second round by Trinity Valley (Texas) but headed home with the Alberta Lee Cox Sportsmanship Award.

Smith paced Wallace State as a freshman with a team-high 11.2 points per game and added 5.6 rebounds a night, earning her All-Region 22 second team and first-team All-North Division recognition. The Lady Lions finished 2013-14 with a 27-5 record and the ACCC North Division title.

Smith was the lone returning starter in 2014-15 and provided leadership all season, along with fellow sophomores Haven Albright, BreAnna Thompson, Morgan Hardy and Kaneisha Mixon.

Smith scored 20 or more points in 10 games, including a career-high 33 points in a road victory last November.

“We were a fairly young team at that point and struggling a little bit,” said Burdette, who earned career win No. 100 in Kansas. “Morgan kind of put the team on her back at Motlow State and made sure everyone followed.”

All five Wallace State sophomores have an opportunity to continue their basketball careers at four-year colleges or universities. Smith is generating the heaviest attention with Indiana, Purdue, Virginia Tech and Stetson University among the schools interested in her. 

“It seems like it’s a new college each day calling about Morgan,” Burdette said. “She plays the game hard and it looks effortless, and that really caught the eye of a lot of coaches at the national tournament.”

Before Tuesday, Ashley Nance was the last Wallace State’s women’s player to earn NJCAA All-American recognition. Nance was an honorable mention selection in 2013, as was TaCouya Allen in 2012 and Bailee Robinson in 2011.