Greetings from a rainy and overcast Greensboro, N.C. Today was media day at the Greensboro Coliseum, site of one of the four women’s NCAA tournament regionals and where sixth-seeded GW will face second-seeded Rutgers tomorrow afternoon. The game will be on ESPN2 at 2:30 p.m., after the conclusion of the first contest of the day, which pits top-seeded UConn against fifth-seeded Old Dominion.
We arrived after Old Dominion was finished with its practice and media session and right as UConn took the floor to practice. The Huskies are the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament and are certainly a daunting team to even watch practice. They were extremely loose but somehow focused at the same time. They started with a somewhat out of tune and yet thoughtful rendition of “happy birthday” for freshman Lorin Dixon. The squad then made her skip all the way around the perimeter of the court while it did some sort of alternative birthday chant that I had never heard. She looked slightly embarrassed.
I had to leave for most of the UConn practice in order to attend the GW press conferences (more about that below) but got back to the court for the final 10 minutes or so. By this point, the Huskies were playing an interesting version of knock-out, the basketball game where a player shoots and if she misses, she has to chase down the ball and make a basket before the player behind her does. If she doesn’t, she is eliminated. UConn was playing a half-court version, where the initial shot was taken from the center circle.
What was interesting about it was at least a few girls made the half-court shot, with Kalana Greene, by my count, hitting three. Head coach Geno Auriemma, one of the most well-known head coaches in women’s basketball, spent a lot of the practice talking to ESPN broadcaster Mike Patrick.
The WRGW guys and I went over to talk to Patrick when he was finished with Auriemma. Patrick is a GW and WRGW alum. He spent at least five minutes talking to us and telling us his tricks and how he prepares for games. He said the toughest part about doing the women’s tournament is that there isn’t as much general knowledge about it as the men’s, and that broadcasters have to appeal to both those who don’t follow the game regularly as well as those who do. He was a really nice guy and told us when we called him “Mr. Patrick” to just call him “Mike.” Sideline ladies Rebecca Lobo and Doris Burke showed up a little bit later.
Now onto the press conferences. GW’s was pretty typical, with coach Joe McKeown acknowledging how good a team Rutgers is and how tomorrow is going to be a very tough battle. Seniors Sarah-Jo Lawrence and Kim Beck and junior Jessica Adair were made available after McKeown, and Sarah-Jo said there is some extra incentive because of what happened the last time the two teams met: a 25-point Rutgers drubbing at Smith Center. Lawrence said that was not GW basketball and she and her teammates are eager to show the country what Colonials basketball really is about.
The Rutgers press conference was more interesting than GW’s. The Scarlet Knights’ head coach, C. Vivian Stringer, barely acknowledged GW in her opening statement nor in her answers to reporters’ questions. When she was finally asked to directly asses the Colonials, she acted like the two teams had never played before and barely knew anything about the squad. She called Beck Peck at first before correcting herself, referred to Sarah-Jo as Mary Jo and only used Adair’s name once before referring to her as the “big girl” every time. She didn’t have much else to say about the match-up.
While I don’t want to read too much into it and it would be dumb to do so, considering Stringer has more than 800 wins under her belt and has been to 21 NCAA tournaments, it did seem a bit like she was overlooking the Colonials. Her team will likely have to play UConn if it makes the Elite 8, and the Scarlet Knights might be looking forward to that already. But they’re too seasoned to completely ignore GW and Stringer just might not be good with names or might be more focused on her team rather than her opponent.
The three Rutgers players who were made available, point guard Matee Ajavon, shooting guard Essence Carson (who once scored 113 points in a high school game) and forward Kia Vaughn, also had very little to say about GW and focused more on themselves. They were loose and joked around and seemed friendly with the New Jersey media, which was out in full force. Also among the press: the New York Times, New York Post and Hartford Courant.
That’s about it from media day. We’ll be back tomorrow with live updates from the game.
