My Goodness There's a 7-Foot-1 Woman Playing Basketball For Texas Tech... Stephanie Okechukwu is The Tallest Player in Women's College Basketball History
Get the ever-living fuck out of the paint when Stephanie Okechukwu is coming through. My goodness. I didn't know they made women of such height. Not west of Asia. I thought giant women were strictly a China thing. Whereas the Chinese are relatively shorter on average, when they're tall, they're tall. Fun fact: there are no Chinese women between 6 and 7 feet. Once they hit 6 feet, they aren't stopping until they're Zhang Ziyu.
Alright, fine, I based that entire dumb joke off the existence of Zhang Ziyu. But that's the only women's basketball player over 7 feet tall that I've ever heard of. Even Brittney Griner is only 6-foot-9. Turns out there's been at least one more. I just now learned of Margo Dydek, the 7-foot-2 Polish woman who played 10 years in the WNBA. She was the #1 pick in the 1998 WNBA Draft by the Utah Starzz (yes, the double-z's were intentional). Margo finished her career with 877 blocks.
Sadly, she passed away from a heart attack in 2011 at only 37 years old. RIP Margo. She was a gigantic legend.
There's also a woman who plays for the New York Liberty named Han Xu, who stands at 6-foot-11. Which does poke a hole in my "Chinese women can't be between 6 and 7 feet tall" theory… but just barely.
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Turns out I'm not especially plugged into the WNBA. My bad. I should have checked with Barstool's resident WNBA blogger/biggest despiser of Angel Reese on the planet, Barstool Devlin.
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Sorry, Devlin. I know Angel Reese CHOKING moves the needle, but I like to imagine him tuning into Atlanta Dream games every night, seething at his television as Angel Reese grabs 4 straight rebounds off her own misses.
The height disparity in the WNBA is hilarious, though. Even Angel Reese, who, as I understand, is as dominant as it gets physically in the paint, is 6-foot-4. At least in the NBA, teams are littered with guys close to 7 feet. But when a 7-foot-plus woman breaks into the WNBA (or onto any basketball court anywhere) she's got a full foot on almost everyone. It's quite something.
Just watch Stephanie Okechukwu, who's from Nigeria and is now a 7-foot-1 sophomore at Texas Tech, take the opening tip.
You might as well not even put a player up against her. As soon as the ref throws the ball up, just try to go pick off the pass.
Stephanie's got a pretty nice looking stroke from the free throw line too.
In the Nigerian Nightmare's first game (it's only a matter of time before they start calling her that), she played 21 minutes, scored 6 points on 2/6 shooting, and pulled down 10 rebounds. I suppose she could work on her touch around the basket a bit, but when it comes to defense, she certainly is… tall. You can't teach tall.