Bland named Most Outstanding Player

WINSTON-SALEM, March 14, 2009 – Unlike her North Carolina A&T teammates, playing in the NCAA Women’s Tournament will not be a new experience for Amber Bland.

In 2005, Bland was a freshman member of the Penn State basketball team that earned an at-large bid to the tournament. But little did Bland know the pitfalls, tribulations and hardships that would accompany her collegiate career following the ‘05 tournament.

Therefore, the NCAA bid she and the Aggies earned on Saturday by defeating Hampton University 76-54 in the MEAC Championship game at the LJVM Coliseum is so much more rewarding.

“It’s good to get to the tournament with a team no one knows and no one really respects,’’ said Bland, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. “That is going to make it fun.”

But Bland’s departure from Penn State was anything but fun. It came amid well-documented news stories, persistent reporters and headaches for Bland and her family. In the end, Bland found herself without a basketball team to call her own for the first time since she was 7.

Fate, however, can sometimes be a peculiar ally. There was a veteran coach with a truckload of accomplishments who by choice was also without a basketball team for the first time in many years. Bibbs decided to retire in 2004 after leading Hampton to its third MEAC Championship under her guidance.

With the encouragement of her family, Bibbs decided to return to coaching in March of 2005 when she accepted the head coaching position at N.C. A&T. It was right around the time Bland was finishing up her freshman campaign at Penn State. The two would meet through a mutual acquaintance.

All of a sudden a player looking for a fresh start and a coach looking to resurrect a program would begin a relationship that would rearrange the North Carolina A&T record books, while helping the program reach heights it had not reached in a long time.

“I’m not here (at A&T) by mistake,’’ said Bland. “Things happen for a reason. Sometimes God takes you through things so you can appreciate the blessing when it comes. I love coach Bibbs and I love my teammates. They helped me through that whole ordeal. They were on my side from day one and I’ll never forget that.”

From the first day Bland put on a N.C. A&T uniform during the 2006-07 season, she displayed the type of skills that made her a two-time Ohio State prep Player of the Year. Well, perhaps a few days after the first day she put on the uniform. Bland scored just two points in each of the first two games she played as an Aggies. But since that point, there have only been 10 other occasions in 94 games played where she has failed to reach double figures.

She prides herself on being an all-around player. She has 1,576 career points in three seasons, which ranks her second on the Aggies all-time scoring list. She has shot close to 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from 3-point range and 75 percent from the free throw line throughout her career. She has more than 530 career rebounds and more than 250 career steals. Yet, she has no conference player of the year awards. Even after her sophomore season when she led the conference in scoring at 19.6 points per game, she saw the award go to Coppin State’s Rashida Suber after Suber led her team to an undefeated season in the conference.

The next season, it was Bland who led her Aggies to a 15-1 mark in the conference, but the award went to Coppin State’s Shalamar Oakley. At the start of the 08-09 season, it seemed the versatile Bland would finally have her brilliant play rewarded with a player of the year trophy. MEAC sports information directors and coaches voted her as the preseason MEAC Player of the Year.

To Bland’s benefit as it turned out, teammate Brittanie Taylor-James put together a remarkable season and was named MEAC Player of the Year last week. Bland said not winning the award the first two years of her career bothered her. But not winning an individual award is small when she compares it to the journey she has taken over the last five years of her life.

On Saturday, Bland was sitting on the LJVM Coliseum floor near the Aggies bench talking to teammates when her name was called as the tournament MOP. Bland’s teammates had to tell her to go accept her award because she was still carrying on her conversation after not realizing her name had been called. 

“It’s funny,’’ said Bland. “I was expecting to win player of the year my first two years, but when I wasn’t expecting to win MVP today, I won it. What we did today as a team is more important to me than any individual award could ever be. I guess tournament MVP means I helped my team when it counted the most, so I feel like it makes up for not winning player of the year.”

Bland may not have a player of the year award, but her place as the chief cornerstone of the Aggies climb to the top of the MEAC is cemented. She may have started her career in a Penn State uniform, but the smile she had as she walked out of the LJVM Coliseum on Saturday had blue and gold written all over it.