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Sunday, March 4, 2007
New teams make mark for women
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
For years, no, decades, women’s college basketball had two names.
Tennessee. UConn.
Even conferences had their favorite daughters. There was the SEC, for instance, where the Lady Dogs of Georgia ranked with the Lady Vols of Tennessee among the SEC elite for nearly forever.
So it was rather significant on Sunday night inside The Arena at Gwinnett Center that the two teams dribbling for the SEC tournament championship weren’t Tennessee or Georgia, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, respectively. They were kicked in their royal conference fannies during the semifinals by No. 4 seed LSU and No. 3 seed Vanderbilt.
It only figured. These are the times in which we live regarding the suddenly balanced women’s game. With tournament MVP Carla Thomas leading the way (13 points, six rebounds, two blocked shots), Vanderbilt survived LSU’s plodding style for a 51-45 victory in a game that mostly was even from the opening tipoff to deep inside the final minute. “I know it wasn’t as pretty as our first two games,” said Vanderbilt coach Melanie Balcomb, referring to blowouts of Florida and Georgia. “What’s really important is that we showed we could play at any tempo.”
Yes, indeed, with LSU so effective at dictating the offensive pace for the evening that the Tigers held their normally sharp-shooting opponents to one 3-point basket. It didn’t matter for LSU since it hadn’t a clue against Vanderbilt’s 3-2 zone. In fact, none of this matters much at all in the grand scheme. They’re both going to the NCAA tournament. It’s just that Vanderbilt likely goes as a No. 2 seed after winning the tournament of the nation’s most competitive conference. Said Balcomb, of her 26-5 team, winners for a 10th time during its past 11 games, “I try so hard not to read the projections … because so much goes into it, and you never know what the selection committee is thinking.”
Whatever the case, all of that ranks slightly behind the following on the total significance meter: Women’s college basketball is in a different place, and it is a good place. Maryland jumped out of nowhere to capture a national championship last season after a corny but effective “Why not us?” pitch in recent years to capture a slew of McDonald’s All-Americans. The year before that, Baylor (I mean, Baylor) won it all.
Here’s the deal: It used to be that the longevity of your average women’s basketball coaches was just shy of an eternity, because nobody cared. Certainly not athletics directors. Since those same athletics directors once gave their women’s coaches only a pittance in salary, mediocrity or less was ignored. Nowadays, just in the SEC, you have Florida firing Carolyn Peck earlier in the season, pending the Gators’ last game, and Arkansas forcing Susie Gardner to resign after consecutive years of faltering down the stretch.
Those are signs of growth in what was a stagnant sport. Other signs include the upgrades given to women’s programs across the country, enough to make the game more than just a Tennessee and UConn thing, not only for high-powered recruits but various television entities.
In this one, ESPN2 cameras zoomed into see a Vanderbilt bunch that plays the ultimate team game. The Lady Commodores are into a deliberate offense (well, not as much as the one they were forced to play on Sunday) that revolves around a bunch of solid players. As for LSU, it’s all about Sylvia Fowles, the Tigers’ splendid center. She only was good against Vanderbilt, and that’s because of her three blocks, nine rebounds and a steal. Other than that, she missed 7 of 11 shots.
This isn’t the end for Fowles or her Tigers, though. Said LSU coach Pokey Chatman, with her team at 25-6, “What this does is give them an opportunity to understand where you’re good, and where you need to be better, and what you need to work on when you go to the next season.”
That “next season” is the NCAA tournament, where suddenly anything is possible.
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Chipper optimistic about health, team
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — Like almost any pro athlete who is nearing 35 and coming off an injury-plagued season, Chipper Jones felt compelled to reassess things this past winter.
The result of that reassessment just isn’t what you would have expected: Shorter workouts and more drive-thru.
“Last year I worked out three hours a day and I still played 110 games,” Jones said. “I worked so hard on my core last offseason, and what happens? I get two oblique injuries.
“I was drinking a lot of whey shakes, eating a lot of protein bars, a lot of oatmeal, a lot of yogurt, a lot of eggs whites.”
And now?
“And now, I still have a lot of egg whites, but with the yolks,” he said. “Candy bars have taken the place of the protein bars. Instead of the whey shakes, I get those cookies-and-cream milkshakes from Chick-fil-A.”
The baseball writers association is considering suing for copyright infringement.
But there it is: If Jones can stay healthy and play at least 150 games for the first time since 2003, he will redefine the workout habits of elite pro athletes everywhere.
“I’ll be Johnny Kruk all over again,” he said.
With a renovated bullpen and a realigned rotation, the Braves could be the Braves all over again this season. But that depends partly on Jones, a franchise original entering his 14th season. He averaged 157 games for eight seasons from 1996 to 2003. But he dropped to 137 games in 2004 (once on the disabled list with a strained hamstring), 109 in 2005 (once on the DL with a toe ligament) and 110 last year (three DL stints: ankle and knee, oblique, oblique).
It was the concern of injury before last season that led Jones to hire a new trainer who both cooked for him and designed new, expanded workouts.
So much for that idea.
He blames the injuries on “fluky things,” not his regimen. That said, the trainer is now an ex-employee. Jones dropped the sit-up marathon and the eat-to-win mentality. He went back to 45-minute workouts in the weight room and eating for taste.
“I’m just gonna enjoy life a little more, do things my way and hopefully get back on the field a little more,” he said.
Even with the injuries last season, he hit .324 with 26 homers and 86 RBIs. Had he been able to play at least 150 games, he said, “I feel like we would’ve been talking about a career year.”
Instead, some now wonder about the durability of a player who has sat out 105 games over the past two seasons. One of the biggest topics of this spring: Chipper Jones’ bunions. To lessen the pain, he is wearing special cushioned insoles in cleats that are one-size too big.
There is, of course, another remedy: “I can have my feet broken and reset. But no doctor in America is going to take the chance on possibly ending my career with that surgery. So nobody’s going to touch me until I get done playing.”
(For what it’s worth, there are only two people I have ever had a conversation with about bunions. The other was my grandmother.)
Jones is bothered that some question whether he can still stay relatively healthy over a season. People have asked him, “Can you play 120 this season?” and he looks at them like they’re from Neptune.
“I don’t go into a season thinking I’m going to play 110 or 120 games,” he said. “I want to play every day. Now, I’m a realist, but 150 is very attainable.”
If Jones hits that mark, the numbers will follow. So will the Braves’ success. With a presumably fixed bullpen — which blew 29 saves last season — Jones said there is no reason why the Braves can’t reclaim the division and go back to the playoffs. He described the closer situation last year as being “like a ticking time bomb. Every game, it was, ‘When is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? Boom! It happens.’?”
Jones doesn’t view his own body with the same sense of doom. Now that he has refined his workout and eating habits, everything should be fine.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
