As Nan once reminded us: Grudges on the Boneyard die hard. Tara Vander Veer was perceived to mistreat Rebecca (Olympics 2000) and she has never been forgiven here.
Not to jump in with another issue, but I always thought it was because of an alleged comment that Vanderveer made about having "five Nykesha Sales" on her team or something to that effect.
***Note that I used the word alleged because I personally have never Googled or conducted any search to see if the statement (or something substantively similar) was actually made.
McGraw: NCAA women might see parity in '16-17
Seems she and the rest of the NCAA, except UConn, lost little talent. How will Madison Cable feel about that?
Coach McGraw said, "This was the year nobody lost a lot of talent except for Connecticut. So I think that really evens things out."
Per ESPN, UConn had the #1, #2, and #6 recruits. They won four straight national titles. They graduated. So UConn "lost a
lot of talent." (emphasis added).
Coach McGraw was not saying that her players were not talented. But no team lost the same level of elite talent that UConn did to graduation. She did not say Madison Cable was not talented. And by the way, Cable was the 52nd ranked recruit
per ESPN and, undre Muffet's coaching and tutelage, became the ACC Tournament Most Valuable Player, an All-ACC First Team, and Honorable Mention All-American (and did so while setting becoming the 10th ranked playing in NCAA history with a career three-point field-goal percentage of. 456). Now *that* is a great example player development and maximizing a player's talent and abilities.
Back to the article, I read Coach McGraw's comments as incredibly complimentary of UConn, in terms of the elite players who just graduated, and that there will be more parity this year in women's college basketball.
As for her statements about Turner and Allen, would you expect the coach of All-Conference players and All-American candidates (and preseason All-American selections) to say, "Well, my players are good, but these other players are better/the best." You might expect a coach to say that after losing a game (e.g., "Diana Taurasi showed why she is the best player in the world tonight, and we could do nothing to stop her."). But in a preseason article? Not likely. As a player, you want your coach "pumping you up," building hype, building your confidence...and then giving them the tools and coaching/leadership/abilities to demonstrate/back up/exceed your statements on the court.
The same could be said for how people react to what Geno says on other team's fan forums. It goes with the territory.
