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Why Oklahoma’s Maddie Manning seized a sixth year of eligibility
Tyler Palmateer
CNHI Sports Oklahoma @TPalmateer83
Maddie Manning can admit now how hard it was.
The difficulty of going from a springy, high school Gatorade Player of the Year to clawing back her way back into a college basketball lineup after blowing out two knees.
And despite an NCAA hardship waiver that granted her a sixth year of basketball eligibility at Oklahoma, how hard it was to accept that year.
Manning is 24 years old. Her friend and former OU teammate Peyton Little is playing professionally in Australia. Other peers have spread their wings in the workforce.
The ruling that allowed Manning to return to Norman was a blessing, but she could have rejected it. She had an undergraduate degree and a Master’s in Intercollegiate Athletic“ I think I was a lot closer [to leaving OU] than people realize, especially the people around here. They thought I was staying this whole time,” Manning said.
She felt a closeness with OU’s 2017 senior class, many of whom were sophomores when Manning tore her left anterior cruciate ligament in a 2013-14 preseason scrimmage. She tore the right ACL her true freshman season right after earning her way into the starting lineup.
When that group moved on, Manning imagined joining them and closing the book on a challenging collegiate career. “You see your friends go on and start businesses themselves, kind of doing cool things. You want a part of that,” Manning said.
Instead, she’s still here. She’ll throw on a jersey and shorts as OU conducts senior night Wednesday against Iowa State — a fitting opponent for Manning, who grew up roughly 25 miles from the ISU campus.
Saturday’s meeting with Texas Tech is her final home game at Lloyd Noble Center. She is a necessity for the Sooners (14-12, 9-6 Big 12), who likely need three more victories to be seriously considered for the NCAA tournament.
“I felt like I owed it to [OU’s seniors] to stay here and help them win games,” she said.
Manning’s decision is easier to understand after examining a childhood that included four older brothers, shoulder pads and black eyes, and a genuine appreciation for the present over the future.
•••
Iowa is known for its fertile soil and the people who cultivate their big visions in it, a reputation nurtured by W.P. Kinsella’s book-turned movie, “Field of Dreams.”
Long before Ankeny became the state’s 10th largest city, a nearby 27-year-old family home sitting on three acres — accessible by gravel road, surrounded in corn stalks — was a dreamy, rural playground for Kim and Tim Manning’s four sons and one daughter.
There was a baseball diamond, complete with a backstop and dusty pitcher’s mound. A batting cage and swimming pool. The home’s deck was a platform for skeet-shooting contests and its three-car garage unfurled into a flat cement driveway — ideal for pickup basketball.
The Manning troop loved football, too, and sometimes traded flags for shoulder pads, or went full rugby style. Maddie Manning’s four brothers were all future college baseball players who pummeled her as they would each other. She was the youngest, the baby, but still wore the pads and could strike a three point stance with one hand in the dirt.
Once she got caught standing too close to home plate and took an inadvertent baseball bat to the face from her brother Danny. She carried the blackeye around for a month.
“There were never any big concessions made for her — from the time she was almost able to walk — just because she was a girl,” Kim said. “We lived out in the country. Those were her playmates.”
That toughness helped Manning through the first ACL tear and especially through the second one, but it’s also been useful this season.
Manning was 11-for-47 shooting during OU’s four game losing streak from late November into December. Before the year, she was presumed healthy and perhaps ready to lead the Sooners in scoring. There were questions about why it wasn’t turning out that way.
It wasn’t until she returned to Ankeny over Christmas break with bruises covering her legs — it was initially believed to be from low iron levels — that a doctor visit seemed in order. Blood tests revealed mononucleosis. She later had heart-racing issues and was forced to wear a heart monitor for 48 hours, through one game and one practice, before getting the all-clear signal. A doctor said it was likely an effect of her mono bout.
Despite that, plus a thumb she broke in a December practice and insisted on playing through, Manning never missed a game. She scored a careerhigh 25 points Jan. 7 at Oklahoma State, six days after joining OU’s 1,000-point club.
She averages 12.3 points and 5.3 rebounds, and gets tired of her mom asking about how she feels. She’ll respond with “good” or “fine.”
That’s because, deep down, Manning wears the black eyes with pride. She kind of likes this challenge. It might take her a long time to appreciate it, she said, but coming back for another season was never supposed to be easy.
•••
OU coach Sherri Coale watches the oldest player on her team put up 3-pointers in an empty, half-dark Lloyd Noble Center when she concludes that Manning plays “cleaner, sharper, less casual. More purposeful,” since her major injuries.
Manning wants to be a coach someday, a big-time one at the Division-I level. (Her aunt Julie has been a senior athletic administrator for nearly four years and is now at Minnesota.) Maybe all this will all help, the toiling she’s put her body and mind through during roughly 2,000 days of a college career that’s finally winding down.
Coale casts an empty glance at Manning when asked what kind of coach she thinks she’ll be. Coale’s not sure about that yet. Maybe she’ll be the type to send daily text messages with inspirational quotes to a player who has practically destroyed both knees, as Coale did with Manning after the second ACL tear.
“Quotes. Maddie loves quotes,” Coale said.
Manning used those messages to fuel an overhaul in her playing style. Some of her explosiveness is gone and won’t return, she admits, so it was necessary to be more conscientious about her game. She focused on 3-point shooting and has already surpassed a career-high attempts this season without much drop in percentage.
She and OU seniors Vionise Pierre-Louis and Gabbi Ortiz have been invited to the WNBA combine, where Manning can discover how her expanded skill set fits into her plans of playing professionally. If America’s best women’s basketball league won’t take her, she’ll find an international league somewhere, largely because she likes the travel perks. There’s a big world outside Iowa and Oklahoma, and it’s been waiting for her.
Manning came close to joining it last season, closer than anyone in the OU program thought, even Coale. But her high school basketball team had a mantra — to treasure the “precious present” — that stayed with her.
Last year sometime after OU’s game against TCU and before the Sooners’ senior night, Kim Manning was driving in Texas when her cellphone rang.
“Mom, I’m just not done yet,” her daughter blurted out. “I just can’t plan for the future until I finish the present.” Kim said she thought that was great.
So, Manning came back. It’s been hard.
It’s also been worth it.
Tyler Palmateer
CNHI Sports Oklahoma @TPalmateer83
Maddie Manning can admit now how hard it was.
The difficulty of going from a springy, high school Gatorade Player of the Year to clawing back her way back into a college basketball lineup after blowing out two knees.
And despite an NCAA hardship waiver that granted her a sixth year of basketball eligibility at Oklahoma, how hard it was to accept that year.
Manning is 24 years old. Her friend and former OU teammate Peyton Little is playing professionally in Australia. Other peers have spread their wings in the workforce.
The ruling that allowed Manning to return to Norman was a blessing, but she could have rejected it. She had an undergraduate degree and a Master’s in Intercollegiate Athletic“ I think I was a lot closer [to leaving OU] than people realize, especially the people around here. They thought I was staying this whole time,” Manning said.
She felt a closeness with OU’s 2017 senior class, many of whom were sophomores when Manning tore her left anterior cruciate ligament in a 2013-14 preseason scrimmage. She tore the right ACL her true freshman season right after earning her way into the starting lineup.
When that group moved on, Manning imagined joining them and closing the book on a challenging collegiate career. “You see your friends go on and start businesses themselves, kind of doing cool things. You want a part of that,” Manning said.
Instead, she’s still here. She’ll throw on a jersey and shorts as OU conducts senior night Wednesday against Iowa State — a fitting opponent for Manning, who grew up roughly 25 miles from the ISU campus.
Saturday’s meeting with Texas Tech is her final home game at Lloyd Noble Center. She is a necessity for the Sooners (14-12, 9-6 Big 12), who likely need three more victories to be seriously considered for the NCAA tournament.
“I felt like I owed it to [OU’s seniors] to stay here and help them win games,” she said.
Manning’s decision is easier to understand after examining a childhood that included four older brothers, shoulder pads and black eyes, and a genuine appreciation for the present over the future.
•••
Iowa is known for its fertile soil and the people who cultivate their big visions in it, a reputation nurtured by W.P. Kinsella’s book-turned movie, “Field of Dreams.”
Long before Ankeny became the state’s 10th largest city, a nearby 27-year-old family home sitting on three acres — accessible by gravel road, surrounded in corn stalks — was a dreamy, rural playground for Kim and Tim Manning’s four sons and one daughter.
There was a baseball diamond, complete with a backstop and dusty pitcher’s mound. A batting cage and swimming pool. The home’s deck was a platform for skeet-shooting contests and its three-car garage unfurled into a flat cement driveway — ideal for pickup basketball.
The Manning troop loved football, too, and sometimes traded flags for shoulder pads, or went full rugby style. Maddie Manning’s four brothers were all future college baseball players who pummeled her as they would each other. She was the youngest, the baby, but still wore the pads and could strike a three point stance with one hand in the dirt.
Once she got caught standing too close to home plate and took an inadvertent baseball bat to the face from her brother Danny. She carried the blackeye around for a month.
“There were never any big concessions made for her — from the time she was almost able to walk — just because she was a girl,” Kim said. “We lived out in the country. Those were her playmates.”
That toughness helped Manning through the first ACL tear and especially through the second one, but it’s also been useful this season.
Manning was 11-for-47 shooting during OU’s four game losing streak from late November into December. Before the year, she was presumed healthy and perhaps ready to lead the Sooners in scoring. There were questions about why it wasn’t turning out that way.
It wasn’t until she returned to Ankeny over Christmas break with bruises covering her legs — it was initially believed to be from low iron levels — that a doctor visit seemed in order. Blood tests revealed mononucleosis. She later had heart-racing issues and was forced to wear a heart monitor for 48 hours, through one game and one practice, before getting the all-clear signal. A doctor said it was likely an effect of her mono bout.
Despite that, plus a thumb she broke in a December practice and insisted on playing through, Manning never missed a game. She scored a careerhigh 25 points Jan. 7 at Oklahoma State, six days after joining OU’s 1,000-point club.
She averages 12.3 points and 5.3 rebounds, and gets tired of her mom asking about how she feels. She’ll respond with “good” or “fine.”
That’s because, deep down, Manning wears the black eyes with pride. She kind of likes this challenge. It might take her a long time to appreciate it, she said, but coming back for another season was never supposed to be easy.
•••
OU coach Sherri Coale watches the oldest player on her team put up 3-pointers in an empty, half-dark Lloyd Noble Center when she concludes that Manning plays “cleaner, sharper, less casual. More purposeful,” since her major injuries.
Manning wants to be a coach someday, a big-time one at the Division-I level. (Her aunt Julie has been a senior athletic administrator for nearly four years and is now at Minnesota.) Maybe all this will all help, the toiling she’s put her body and mind through during roughly 2,000 days of a college career that’s finally winding down.
Coale casts an empty glance at Manning when asked what kind of coach she thinks she’ll be. Coale’s not sure about that yet. Maybe she’ll be the type to send daily text messages with inspirational quotes to a player who has practically destroyed both knees, as Coale did with Manning after the second ACL tear.
“Quotes. Maddie loves quotes,” Coale said.
Manning used those messages to fuel an overhaul in her playing style. Some of her explosiveness is gone and won’t return, she admits, so it was necessary to be more conscientious about her game. She focused on 3-point shooting and has already surpassed a career-high attempts this season without much drop in percentage.
She and OU seniors Vionise Pierre-Louis and Gabbi Ortiz have been invited to the WNBA combine, where Manning can discover how her expanded skill set fits into her plans of playing professionally. If America’s best women’s basketball league won’t take her, she’ll find an international league somewhere, largely because she likes the travel perks. There’s a big world outside Iowa and Oklahoma, and it’s been waiting for her.
Manning came close to joining it last season, closer than anyone in the OU program thought, even Coale. But her high school basketball team had a mantra — to treasure the “precious present” — that stayed with her.
Last year sometime after OU’s game against TCU and before the Sooners’ senior night, Kim Manning was driving in Texas when her cellphone rang.
“Mom, I’m just not done yet,” her daughter blurted out. “I just can’t plan for the future until I finish the present.” Kim said she thought that was great.
So, Manning came back. It’s been hard.
It’s also been worth it.
