It’s Not Just the Stars That Make a Championship Team

So did you see the Final Four last night? Watch those semi-final games? Great offensive performances by Louisville’s Angel McCoughtry, Courtney Paris of OU, Jayne Appel of Stanford, and UConn’s Renee Montgomery and Maya Moore! Unreal banging and defense by Tina Charles on Appel! All showed why they were chosen All-Americans by just about everyone, and why they are worthy of all the praise they get.

I hope you also saw the other things that I saw. Prior to the Louisville-OU game, we heard about McCoughtry and Candice Bingham of Louisville. True to form, they were the only two Cardinals to finish in double figures. But what I saw was Becky Burke absolutely shut down Big 12 freshman of the year Whitney Hand in the second half. I saw Burke nail two HUGE three pointers during the Louisville run. I saw converted Point Guard Deseree’ Byrd handle the pressure of this game and the quickness of the Sooners, while making the right play time after time. Under her steady hand, Louisville committed 9 turnovers, the entire game, compared to OU’s 17. And most importantly, I saw Keshia Hines and Monique Reid control Paris, limiting her to 10 shot attempts for the game. The headlines will rightly go to Angel and perhaps Bingham, but Louisville is playing Tuesday night because of these other ladies.

In the second game, I saw Husky Kalana Greene play Stanford’s Kayla Pedersen dead even, matching Stanford’s third team All-Pac 10 forward, with both scoring 10 points and getting 6 rebounds. The same Kayla Pedersen, with Greene out injured last season, torched the Huskies in the semifinals for 17 points, second only to the incredible performance of Candice Wiggins. I saw Tiffany Hayes, the freshman who started the year on the bench and went through a horrendous three-point shooting streak mid-season, hit a game opening three pointer from well beyond the line, setting the tone for the entire game. And then there was Lorin Dixon and Kaili McLaren, both buried on the bench at different times by Coach Geno Auriemma contributing double-figure minutes each, contributing assists, rebounds and defense, while the stars did their thing at the hoop. And without those contributions, UConn doesn’t roll through Stanford like they did.

So when you sit down to watch the championship game on Tuesday night, the commentators will be talking about Angel and Candice, and Renee, Maya and Tina, but try to look past them too. Try to see these other magnificent players that sacrifice the headlines for the greater good, and try to see that that without those contributions, maybe, just maybe, those teams would also be watching Tuesday night.

David Siegel