Azania Stewart's VIDEO Blog about her Summer of Hoops
Friday, July 8, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Florida senior Azania Stewart (Wood Green, England) traveled to her native country of England, where she played basketball from May through June, strengthening her chances of making the 2012 Great Britain Olympic Team.
Azania has completed her international adventure and returned to Gainesville, where she sat down for a VIDEO recap and update.
For the second consecutive summer Stewart was selected to tryout for her native country's Great Britain Standard Life team.
Stewart made the club last summer and helped the team to a successful run and build experience for the 2012 Olympic Games.
She was one of 16 players who made the 2011 Great Britain Standard Life team that travel to Surrey Sports Park to play in the 'British Basketball Invitational Tournament', that began May 18, 2011.
From there, the squad had a few “friendlies” before setting its sights on EuroBasket 2011 (a.k.a. European Women's World Championships) in mid-June in Poland.
GB Standard Life women's head coach is Tom Maher, who has an impressive coaching pedigree at club and international level, leading Australia, New Zealand and China to Olympic Games - including a silver and bronze for Australia in 2000 and 1996 respectively and a fourth place finish for China in Beijing in 2008.
Stewart, a 6-foot-4 center, played in all 35 games and earned 33 starting assignments during the 2010-11 season, when she blocked 62 shots, the second-most ever by a Gator junior in program history. Stewart has totaled 135 blocked shots during her three-year collegiate career to rank fifth in the UF record book. Her career field goal percentage of 56.2 percent (230-409) currently stands as the highest in program history. Stewart led the Gators in rebounding last year, collecting 6.1 per game, while contributing 6.6 points in UF's balanced offensive attack.
