Lady Vols

Read last night that Tasha Butts was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer. She played for Pat in the early ‘00s and is now an assistant coach at Georgia Tech.

 

Was very satisfying to watch Tech beat Bueckers-less UConn… the Huskies have always seemed to be a team that has one big star and a supporting cast whose job is to stay out of the way. Now that their star is out for the time being UConn is just another program.

 

I get the sense Geno is just old and lacks the fire. His teams will be good and he still gets players, but the clock is ticking.

 

There are more players too so he can't out talent everybody anymore

 

I don't know if it's women's basketball or just the Lady Vols, but we make an astonishing number of dumb and low basketball IQ plays of any team I've seen play this year. The ladies have the ball at the end of the quarter with the shot clock off and decide to take a contested 3 with 10 seconds left, leading to a 3 at the buzzer for the other team. I shudder to think the ass chewing some of these players would've received under Summitt.

 

The idea the women's game is more fundamentally sound has never wrung true to me. I see all kinds of mystifying tactics and play from the Lady Vols today, particularly defensively.

 

I completely understand why fans/analysts/whomever try to sell that point of view in trying to grow their game, but I agree.

 

I don't get the point of women's basketball.

 

Literally the same point as men's basketball.

 

Score more points than the other team.

 

Except with much less athletic players.

 

A Pat Summit coached team, especially early in her career was more fundamentally sound than 99.999% of basketball teams. People took that and applied it to an entire sport

 

My 90+ year old grandparents operate a boarding stable. There are only about 12 or 15 total horses. Not a fancy place. They do it to pay bills and because I think my Papaw wants to die working.

Anyway, Kellie Harper boards two horses there.

 

Dying working for one's self doing something you want to do is actually pretty appealing.

 

Pappaws wanting to die working seems to be universal

 

I've got a 92 year old client that got mad a couple of years ago when his doctor wouldn't let him use his chainsaw. Oh yeah, he couldn't use it because he was recovering from an aortic aneurysm that he survived because HE CRAWLED ACCROSS THE FLOOR AND DIALED 911 HIMSELF.

 

Wow!

 

It's an interesting situation up there. A pretty good book could be written about their lives. My papaw goes down with something semi-major about once every 6 months. I think they hate winter but won't say it. They could sell their property and quit but there is no way in hell. My mamaw has to work harder than Papaw because she helps up at the barn and does the cooking and such. She wants to keep the property in the family. The oldest part of the house was built by her great great grandfather who came over from the carolinas in the 1830s. My aunt (in her 60s now) isn't able to take care of herself and they take care of her, including driving her for all her errands. All that they feel like they have to do keeps them going.

 

This guy is pretty awesome. He's one of my favorites.

 

Watched the Lady Vols for the first time this year, and their offense looked horrendous (15 turnovers in the first half!), but the rebounding was dominant enough to secure a road win against a top 15 team. I don’t imagine that will work against the cream of the crop. But whew, this team was more frustrating than the men and are somehow top five. To be fair, it was just one game (and they did win).