When the basketball season started out, it didn’t look like we’d be seeing much good out of the Rutgers’ Women’s Team. They played poorly at the start of the season and lost more than a few games that they should have won. Now, after beating one of the best teams in the country, they’re one game away from the Final Four.
Today’s New York Times has a great story about how they turned a season around:
GREENSBORO, N.C., March 25 ? Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer has been around basketball long enough to know what an N.C.A.A. tournament contender looks like. But she did not see it in her Scarlet Knights earlier this season. They were too young. They were out of shape. They did not play defense.
They did not belong in that category.
?This team was the most unlikely,? Stringer said Sunday when asked if she was surprised her team was preparing for a national quarterfinal game against Arizona State. A victory Monday night at Greensboro Coliseum will send the Scarlet Knights to the Final Four, in Cleveland, for the fourth time in Stringer?s career and her second with Rutgers.
It all started with a practice session on New Years Eve:
A group of Rutgers alumni, including professionals and top former players like Cappie Pondexter, Tammy Sutton-Brown, Chelsea Newton, Mauri Horton and Michelle Campbell, gathered on New Year?s Eve for a six-hour practice session with the young team. They were given an tutorial on how to play Scarlet Knights basketball.
For freshmen like guard Epiphanny Prince, a starter, and the key reserves Myia McCurdy, Brittany Ray, Junaid Rashidat and Dee Dee Jernigan, it was a revelation.
?That was a good experience for me,? Prince said. ?Because when I played against Cappie, she was in my ear the whole time talking to me, trying to give me advice and stuff. Just little things on offense and defense.?
Stringer called the session a turning point for the Scarlet Knights. The freshmen developed into the kind of defensive players who could help the juniors Essence Carson and Matee Ajavon.The sophomores Kia Vaughn and Heather Zurich ? the heart of the young team ? shut down second-ranked Connecticut, 55-47, to win the Big East tournament title on March 6, then hold Duke to its lowest output of the season.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Tonight, Rutgers plays Arizona State for a chance to go to Cleveland and play in the National Championship Game.
