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. The penultimate honor goes, simply, to the best forward the program has ever seen.

Gerlonda Hardin's career featured six championships and four NCAA Tournament appearances. Just by counting the rings, she's one of the greats.

But Hardin wasn't just a passenger—she was the low-post focal point for those squads, a rim-protecting dynamo whose mere presence in the paint altered how opponents attacked the Govs on one end and tried to defend them on the other. Double-team Hardin and die by a barrage of Brooke Armistead and Paige Smith threes. Try to play her straight up and prepare to have a long night. Throw in Ashley Haynes and [shrug emoji].

Add in the numbers and a great career becomes transcendent. Hardin is third all-time in scoring (1,863 points), rebounding (982) and field goals made (749) and second in career free-throws made (365). The number four, for whatever reason, seems to resonate throughout Hardin's career. Hardin has the four highest blocked shot season total in program history; her 223 career swats put her nearly 100 ahead of Beth Rates at No. 2 and remains the fourth-highest tally in the history of the Ohio Valley Conference. She also owns the only four seasons of 60 percent shooting from the floor in Austin Peay history, including an incredible 63.5 percent as a junior in 2002-03, and led the league in all four seasons.

The only four-time All-Tournament performer in Austin Peay history and one of 11 in the history of the league, Hardin relished the big moments. She was named OVC Tournament MVP in 2002 and 2004, one of seven players in league history with multiple tourney MVP honors, including the 2004 season which saw become one of six players in league history to take tournament MVP honors in the same season she also was named league Player of the Year. And she never shied away when the Govs were in the NCAA Tournament, setting the program single-game record with seven blocks at Tennessee as a freshman, leading the Govs with 19 points and five boards against Purdue as a sophomore and pulling down 10 rebounds in the near-upset of North Carolina as a junior. 

She began her career as OVC Freshman of the Year and ended it as OVC Player of the Year. In between, the three-time All-OVC performer put together one of the best basketball careers in Austin Peay history.