JoePgh
Cranky pants and wise acre
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The Courant this morning (6/25) had an article by Alex Putterman (where is Kelli Stacy??) where the main subject was the success of Crystal’s and Evina’s surgeries, but it had some comments at the end from Evina and Anna Makurat that the BY will be interested in:
Evina: “When you hear women’s basketball, the first thing that pops in your mind is UConn. They’re always winning, and they’re always one of the best teams at the end of th year. Coming here and seeing it first-hand, it makes omelette sense why that is. I’m really happy I made the decision that I did.”
While this is certainly flattering to her ooaches and new teammates, something doesn’t quite add up. If that is how she feels, why didn’t she come here out of high school? Did she not get an offer? Moreover, her final two were Tennessee and Notre Dame, and she picked Tennessee. Why on earth? If she is so impressed with winning records (recently) and similar basketball style to UConn, why wouldn’t she pick Notre Dame? There is something here that is not being said.
Anna: “The conditioning stuff and how hard we work, it’s much harder here. We work much harder here. But basketball, I think it’s pretty much the same level [as in Europe].”
Geno: “I don’t think Anna is going to take any amount of time to get acclimated. She’s kind of been playing away from home since she was 13. So there isn’t any kind of basketball system that she’s going to feel out of place in.”
What Anna said is actually the opposite of what I would have expected her to say. I would expect something to the effect that they work just as hard in Europe, but the skill level of her teammates here is higher. I guess the explanation for that is that she has been playing at a quasi-professional level in Europe, beyond what most high schoolers there or here would normally experience.
Evina: “When you hear women’s basketball, the first thing that pops in your mind is UConn. They’re always winning, and they’re always one of the best teams at the end of th year. Coming here and seeing it first-hand, it makes omelette sense why that is. I’m really happy I made the decision that I did.”
While this is certainly flattering to her ooaches and new teammates, something doesn’t quite add up. If that is how she feels, why didn’t she come here out of high school? Did she not get an offer? Moreover, her final two were Tennessee and Notre Dame, and she picked Tennessee. Why on earth? If she is so impressed with winning records (recently) and similar basketball style to UConn, why wouldn’t she pick Notre Dame? There is something here that is not being said.
Anna: “The conditioning stuff and how hard we work, it’s much harder here. We work much harder here. But basketball, I think it’s pretty much the same level [as in Europe].”
Geno: “I don’t think Anna is going to take any amount of time to get acclimated. She’s kind of been playing away from home since she was 13. So there isn’t any kind of basketball system that she’s going to feel out of place in.”
What Anna said is actually the opposite of what I would have expected her to say. I would expect something to the effect that they work just as hard in Europe, but the skill level of her teammates here is higher. I guess the explanation for that is that she has been playing at a quasi-professional level in Europe, beyond what most high schoolers there or here would normally experience.
