by (Springfield, Mo) – Jenni Lingor (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) was a four-year basketball starting guard on four straight postseason tournament teams for the Lady Bears from 2001 to 2005, playing as a freshman for coach Cheryl Burnett and the last three seasons for coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson.
Lingor, a native of Tahlequah, Okla., capped her MSU career by leading the Lady Bears to consecutive wins over SMU, Gonzaga, Texas A&M, Iowa and West Virginia for the championship of the 2005 Women’s National Invitation Tournament, and she was named tourney MVP. The Lady Bears also played in the Women’s NIT when Lingor was a freshman and MSU won the Missouri Valley Conference postseason tourney to take the MVC banner into the NCAA tourney field in 2003 and 2004. Lingor led Missouri State in scoring twice and in rebounding three times. She was named to the Missouri Valley Conference all-league first team three times, was MVC Freshman of the Year her first year and was voted MVC Player of Year as a senior.
Lingor averaged over 13 points a game each of her first three seasons and then punched up 20.0 points a game as a senior. Lingor currently ranks in the Lady Bears’ career top ten in games played (124), scoring average (15.2), rebounds (699), assists (386), field goals (615), FG attempts (1,306), free throws (389), FT attempts (485) and steals (194). She is second all-time in three-point field goals (265) and fifth in points (1,884).
After her Missouri State graduation, Lingor was drafted by the Detroit Shock of the WNBA and later played professionally in Sweden, New Zealand and Estonia, playing on championship clubs and gaining league all-star selection in the last two of those three stops. She now lives in Sallasaw, Okla., and works as a Cherokee Nation Deputy Marshal with police supervision over 14 counties in eastern Oklahoma.
