Greenwalt heading for Korea

LUBBOCK — While she hopes for another shot at the WNBA, Clovis High and Texas Tech graduate Cisti Greenwalt is getting ready to ply her trade in South Korea.

The 6-foot-5 Greenwalt gained a spot in a six-team South Korean professional basketball league. She will leave for Seoul in the next day or two.

“I actually was in the Korean draft (of U.S. players),” Greenwalt said Monday night, adding that each team is allowed one American player. “They didn’t draft me, but another girl didn’t want to go.”

Greenwalt, selected by the Sacramento Monarchs in the WNBA draft in April but cut just before the start of the season, said she has kept in contact with Monarchs coach John Whisenant. She is hopeful to get another chance down the line, and wouldn’t mind going back to Sacramento.

Greenwalt said all of the Korean teams are within about a half-hour of each other. She’ll be on her own, and hopes to perhaps strike up a friendship with an American on one of the other teams.

“They offered me a contract to come,” she said. “Nobody on my team speaks English, so I’ll have a translator and a driver.”

The season starts around July 1 and ends in late August.

“This’ll help me a lot to go over there and get more experience,” she said. “I’d much rather be in Sacramento than Korea, but maybe if I go and play real well I’ll have a chance (at the WNBA next year).”

Greenwalt, who led Clovis to back-to-back large-school state championships in 1999 and 2000, completed her four-year career at Tech as the Big 12’s career leader in blocked shots with 300.

She was one of seven post players in preseason camp for the Monarchs, several of whom had previous WNBA experience. Greenwalt said Whisenant had tried to make a trade to open a spot for her, but was unable to do so.