Please patronize our advertisers to help
keep theOzone.net free for everyone.

The-Ozone.net Mall

Interesting, Fun companies with interesting, quality products - and the-Ozone gets a piece of the action!

Women's Basketball
Third Conference POY the Toughest for Lavender
By Tony Gerdeman

Jantel Lavender
Photo by Jim Davidson

Now three years into her collegiate career, Ohio State center Jantel Lavender was recently named Big Ten Player of the Year for the third consecutive year. She became just the second three-time winner of the award, joining the very player that she replaced at center for the Buckeyes in 2007, Jessica Davenport

To this point, those three years have encompassed 97 games--78 of which have been wins. In each of those 97 games, Lavender has managed to score in double figures. It wasn’t something that she ever set out to do, it’s just something that has always happened. And now, sitting with the longest such streak in Division I, scoring is just something that is freely expected from her.

Such expectations can take their toll on a player if they let it. But considering that Lavender isn’t overly impressed with her scoring accomplishments, they don’t appear to be weighing too heavily on her mind.

"I don’t really go into games with a mindset that I have to score in double figures”, she said. “It’s just that the opportunities are there. I think it just comes with playing hard. It could be getting an offensive rebound and putting it back in. I think it’s just taking it to that next level and not settling for anything. Running the floor and getting rebounds is what sets the tone."

Only knowing collegiate life as the player of the year might allow some to take certain things for granted, but Lavender was never afforded that opportunity. After her sophomore season, she was given the chance to play with USA Basketball, and according to Head Coach Jim Foster, that didn’t allow for much laurel resting.

“The USA basketball model puts you in a situation where for a month or five weeks, you’re with your peers that are at your level on a daily basis, and you have to practice harder to succeed”, Foster explained. “Once you do that, and once you’re in that environment, you realize what you’re capable of. Maybe you weren’t practicing and playing as hard, even though you thought you were playing hard. You realized that ‘well I had to play a little harder here’. And now you know that there’s another level.”

Armed with the knowledge of what that next level entails, Lavender set out to have her best year ever in 2009. Instead, she had her most injury-plagued year ever. Head, shoulders, knees and toes; you name it, and a trainer had wrapped it, bandaged it, gauzed it or taped it.

Though as healthy now as she has been all season, for most of conference play, she was rarely playing on two healthy legs.

“This was one of the most physical Big Ten seasons I’ve played in”, Lavender explained.

“At one point, both of my ankles were sprained, my knee was hurting and my shoulder was bad. I was really pushing through and trying to do for my team as much as I could.”

And she succeeded. But it was never easy. In fact, the physical pain proved to be just a side note at times.

"I got to a point where I was really, really getting frustrated. There was one game at home, I just remember my ankle was sprained and I bent down and tears came to my eyes because it was my other ankle. It just almost took me over. I was like ‘Am I having a mental breakdown in the game?’ But you’ve just got to stay tough. I just started really doing the ice baths a whole lot and doing treatment.”

Jim Foster has seen this scenario before. Physical tumult builds within a player until it comes spilling out, and then you have a brand new situation to deal with.

“When you talk about a player who has never had to encounter ‘adversity’ through injuries, and then has to, they’re going to go one of two ways”, he said. “They’re going to look for sympathy relative to their plight, or they’re going to figure out how they can eliminate it. I think it’s like any other learning situation in life. You apply some thought to it and do a little research and get a little information from others who have experienced it, and then you go on.”

Which is exactly what Jantel Lavender did. Her team helped and supported her just like she has helped and supported them for 97 games now. They pushed through for her when she was at her lowest, just as she had pushed through for them when they needed her most.

And Jim Foster understands the sacrifices that his star center has made in trying to keep her ailments from adversely affecting this team. Not the least of which were the repeated visits to the unforgiving arctic circle of aquatic receptacles.

“It’s a great sacrifice to get in that ice bath, my friend”, he said, pausing for proper effect.

But the injuries merely told a couple of chapters of Lavender’s season-long story. This third Player of the Year award was not based on a sympathy vote. There is simply no player in the Big Ten who affects a game more than she does.

Be it her 18 double-doubles this season, or the fact that she is only one of three players in Division I to average 20 points, 10 rebounds and shoot 50% from the field, or knowing that she leads the conference in scoring and is third in rebounding, or the simple fact that she is currently on pace to become Ohio State’s all-time leading scorer about 360 days from this very moment--any one of these factors would be ample justification for whatever accolades Lavender has received.

And when you combine them all, there’s simply no doubt that this triplicate trophy was well-earned. But despite all of the attention and the adoration, Lavender keeps the game simple.

“It’s just about pushing”, she said. “I try to push for every game that I can, and play extremely hard because it’s only forty minutes out of the day. So, I try to really push and play extremely hard for that 40 minutes and say, ‘I can rest afterwards’.”

Even if it’s in a bathtub full of ice.

Donate by Check :

Ozone Communications
1380 King Avenue
Columbus, Ohio

Help us bring you more Buckeye coverage. Donate to the-Ozone.

Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.

(c) 2010 The O-Zone, O-Zone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.