27 December 2010
Quote of the Day: John Walters
For Christmas I got (among other things) the book The Same River Twice, about UConn's 2000-2001 season. I'm up to page 63, and I've already found a lot of quotes from it. Here's one:
Near the end of practice [Coach] Geno's patience is tried on consecutive plays by Sveta and Diana, respectively. Unintentionally, they snare him in a coaching Catch-22. With the ball on the left wing, Sveta looks inside to feed Tamika Williams. However, she looks a moment too long. Morgan Valley reads Sveta's eyes, steps between Sveta and Tamika, and steals her pass.
"Put the ball in there like you wanna be a player, Svet," he says. "Nice bounce pass. Jesus! What do you think they're looking at? They're looking at what you're looking at."
On the next play Diana has the ball at the top of the key. She looks right then, spiritual daughter of Magic Johnson that she is, fires a one-handed, no-look bullet pass to Tamika, who is open under the basket. Tamika never sees it. The pass whizzes by her and hits Geno, who is standing next to the basket stanchion, in the side. Now whose fault is that?
Geno raises his eyes. Diana suppresses a laugh, then says, "Sorry". The team waits for a reaction. Will Geno go Vesuvius on Diana? Svet's pass failed because she fooled no one; Diana's because she fooled everyone. How do you tether Diana's virtuosity without clipping her wings?
He waits a beat. Then, with little conviction, he says, "I don't want to see any one-hand passes."
Near the end of practice [Coach] Geno's patience is tried on consecutive plays by Sveta and Diana, respectively. Unintentionally, they snare him in a coaching Catch-22. With the ball on the left wing, Sveta looks inside to feed Tamika Williams. However, she looks a moment too long. Morgan Valley reads Sveta's eyes, steps between Sveta and Tamika, and steals her pass.
"Put the ball in there like you wanna be a player, Svet," he says. "Nice bounce pass. Jesus! What do you think they're looking at? They're looking at what you're looking at."
On the next play Diana has the ball at the top of the key. She looks right then, spiritual daughter of Magic Johnson that she is, fires a one-handed, no-look bullet pass to Tamika, who is open under the basket. Tamika never sees it. The pass whizzes by her and hits Geno, who is standing next to the basket stanchion, in the side. Now whose fault is that?
Geno raises his eyes. Diana suppresses a laugh, then says, "Sorry". The team waits for a reaction. Will Geno go Vesuvius on Diana? Svet's pass failed because she fooled no one; Diana's because she fooled everyone. How do you tether Diana's virtuosity without clipping her wings?
He waits a beat. Then, with little conviction, he says, "I don't want to see any one-hand passes."
Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball
# posted by mamurd @ 8:35 PM 
