As you've likely heard, we don't have any live-action contests to cover at LetsGoPeay.com right now. What we do have is free time; oodles and oodles of free time. Enough free time to swap oodles of emails with various people who would know to create a snapshot of the 10 best players in Austin Peay women's basketball history. Up next: someone who had to battle for every precious second of her Austin Peay career and left as a champion.
You likely remember Carrie Daniels, who was head coach for nine seasons at Austin Peay and won two Ohio Valley Conference Tournament titles at the helm of the women's basketball program.
What you should remember is a five-year career featuring long odds, lots of scoring and an OVC title as a player as well.
Then doing business as Carrie Thompson, she arrived in Clarksville in 1991 and immediately joined the starting lineup. She was an All-OVC honorable mention as a sophomore and consistently upped her production under head coach LaDonna Wilson.
Her career came under serious threat in 1994, when she was forced to miss most of the 1994-95 season, taking a medical redshirt to deal with a heart ailment. She came back in full force for the 1995-96 season, averaging 10.3 points per game for the eventual OVC Tournament champions; she led the Govs in scoring with 14 points in Austin Peay's opening-round game against third-seeded Clemson. She also earned the 1995 Wilma Rudolph Award, given annually by the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics to a student-athlete who overcame great personal, academic, and/or emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics.
At the time of her graduation, she was only the second player in school history to compile 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 200 assists and 200 steals during her career. She earned the 1996 Joy Award given to the top senior athlete at Austin Peay. With her appearance in the NCAA Tournament both as head coach and player, she's one 26 people in Division I history who can stake that claim.
