Whole Latta Love

Normally, I steer clear of BC women’s basketball. It is not an issue of my manliness, (or lack there of) but rather of the quality of play. While I know that division 1 women’s basketball players are better basketball players than I am, I find it hard to get jacked up about a women’s bball game when I know I have 12 men’s games, plus numerous men’s and women’s (yes women’s) ice hockey games on my slate for the winter. I follow the women through the newspaper, but they have been having a mediocre season so I have had no real reason to go, and I was content with just reading about in the paper. I knew it would take some extraordinary circumstances to attend a women’s Eagles game. Well, those extraordinary circumstances just happen to present themselves tonight.
It started on Monday at The Heights meeting, with Jeff (my editor) wanting somebody to do a story on the big weekend the women’s bball team had ahead of them, with UNC and Maryland on the slate. Naturally I declined, but I couldn’t help but being drawn in; “all the girls HATE (North Carolina PG) Ivory Latta,” Jeff said, “I was on the plane with them (in the NCAA Tournament) and all they talked about was how much they hated her.” I knew then that I had to see her play in person.
I had seen her once on ESPN last year, but she hadn’t captured my imagination. The announcers referred to her as “Lady Iverson,” so naturally I was inclined to hate her. But since BC rarely plays the #2 team in the country, and since Ivory Latta, the object of so much hate and so much passion was playing, I just had to go.

I arrived about 2 minutes into the game (thanks Newton Bus) to see that Latta had yet to score. I took a seat in the endzone with my back pack and pizzeria uno cheese pizza and began to chow down while focusing the rest of my attention on Latta. She didn’t score for the first 12 minutes of the game, and needless to say I was furious at the sports loving side of myself for roping the rational, I-need-to-write-a-paper-for-geology side of myself into watching a collegiate women’s basketball game.
She was probably dazed by the beauty of the campus, it was the first time UNC had ever traveled to BC, and it took her a while to remember that she was the female recreation of the man who boasts the filthiest crossover in the game.
It started with the shot clock winding down near the 7 minute mark. Latta squared up and drove to the middle of the paint, lofting a floater to the bottom of the net. Then she stole the ball at half court and got an assist robbed from her when her teammate was called for traveling. Then she hit a trey. Then another trey. And another for good measure. Every time she shot a three, she would end up on the ground falling backwards and asking the ref for a foul. She also would chat with them during freethrows if she wasn’t being rubbed down with a towel by one of her teammates. She ended the half with 11 points, probably 3 assists and 4 would be assists on missed wide open shots. She was good there was no denying it.
I decided I would stop paying attention to her for a while, she had proven legitimate to me. Plus, Jared Dudley and his girlfriend had decided to sit two rows in front of me, and then Shamari Spears showed up and they were having a grande ‘ol time. I couldn’t quite understand what Jared was saying, except that he kept joking about how he could never get a hold of Daye Kaba (a backup swingman on BC). Good times all around.
The second half was all UNC, they stretched the lead to 30, and with 4 minutes remaining I decided to leave, feeling righteous. Latta had 20 points off a couple more teardrops and steals, enough to convince me that I would never, under any circumstances, challenge her to one on one.
That’s all I got, if I could take 400 of those 700 words I just wrote and tack them on to the end of my geology paper, then I would really be in business, but I can’t, so I better get cracking.


Until we meet again,

Dave

P.S. Another reason I cant go to women’s bball games, because the take time away from when I could watch men’s bball, like tonight when I missed the thriller at Virginia, oh well, its hard to win them all.