The State Farm Wade Trophy is going through some growing pains. I just hope it goes through them quickly, because there are some problems that need to be fixed with this award.

It has been given since 1978, and was formerly under the jurisdiction of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. The late Margaret Wade, coach of three-time AIAW champion Delta State, always wanted her namesake trophy to be awarded through the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.

And the WBCA, under CEO Beth Bass, was able to negotiate control, if you will, of the Wade Trophy in 2001. Bass signed on State Farm as a sponsor, and the winner is now announced by ESPN. That's all good.

Last Friday, though, things with the Wade Trophy started getting a little screwy.

The WBCA released what it said was its list of 13 final candidates for the award. There were at least two surprising omissions: South Carolina's Jocelyn Penn and Kansas State's Kendra Wecker.

When I called Wade selection committee chair Billie Moore that night to ask about the list, she did not know it had been sent out, nor was she certain who was on it.

How does that happen? I'm not trying to embarrass people, and I do want to say Moore was very polite and tried to answer the questions. But if you're calling an award the "Heisman'' of your sport, you'd think the selection committee chair would have been kept abreast of such an announcement and not been put in an awkward position. Did the WBCA assume no one would ask about it?

Further, if the chair wasn't entirely sure who was on the list, then who exactly did decide that? There are 11 committee members, only one of whom is currently a Division I head coach, Mississippi State's Sharon Fanning.

Now, back to the omissions. There are three players on the list from the SEC, and somehow Penn isn't one of them. Even though she leads the league in steals (3.8), is second in scoring (24.5), second in field-goal percentage (62.1) and tied for fourth in rebounding 8.0.

Then there's Wecker, one of the top candidates for Big 12 player of the year. She leads the league in scoring (19.6), is fourth in rebounding (8.4), 10th in assists (3.7) and 10th in steals (1.85).

Wecker's versatility is such that she has made 46 3-pointers this season and has more rebounds (227) than every player on the Wade list except her teammate, Nicole Ohlde (239).

Ohlde, incidentally, is the only person on the list from the Big 12, a conference that currently has three teams in the Associated Press' top 10.

Like most people, I'd guess the Wade is between Duke's Alana Beard and UConn's Diana Taurasi, both juniors -- although the award has been senior-dominated.

Had Stanford's Nicole Powell not gotten off to the late start because of her back injury, she'd be mentioned just as often as the other two. As far as I'm concerned, though, she probably should be anyway.

I don't think Penn nor Wecker had any chance of winning the award this year. But it seems wrong that they aren't on the list. While we're at it, here are some more questions: