Maduka Drops Basketball

Track and basketball star Jeomi Maduka, one of the most accomplished athletes at Cornell, has decided to leave the women’s basketball team to pursue an NCAA track championship.
Maduka has been piling up accolades since arriving on East Hill. In track, she is a 13-time champion at Heps. At the NCAA track championships, she has finished in the top-10 twice. In basketball, Maduka easily won last year’s Ivy League Player of the Year and was named an honorable mention All-American.
And this was all while splitting her time between the two sports. It wasn’t unusual for Maduka to play Friday night with the basketball team, then drive or fly to a different location the next day to compete with the track team.
In the end, Maduka decided that to achieve goals she had set out for her senior year, there was no way to fit basketball into the equation any more. She called it one of the toughest decisions she had ever made, as she did not want to let her basketball teammates down.
Women’s basketball head coach Dayna Smith said she was surprised by the decision, but will move forward with the team when it opens practice Friday.
For more coverage, see tomorrow’s Sun.