COLUMN: Taking my lumps on the court
One month down, one fella down on his athletic confidence.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?
I wasn’t supposed to get swatted by center Banna Diop on a one-on-one drill Monday. I wasn’t supposed to, on the second possession, not only miss a layup (granted, a highly-contested one) but also fail to miss the offensive putback attempt.
I wasn’t supposed to start 0-2 as part of a four-on-four drill, where usually the four playing offense are all guys, and we’re supposed to be helping improve the girls’ defensive abilities in a half-court set.
I wasn’t supposed to miss gorgeous dump passes off pick-and-rolls from senior guard LaCale Pringle-Buchanan. That’s money for a dunk! Instead, all the basket got were a couple of frustrated slaps to the pad.
And I sure as heck wasn’t supposed to kick manager John Anderson in the face last Wednesday on an offensive rebound attempt.
But, both good and bad comes around, right?
Validation: Nabbing blocks on both of my turns on defense in the one-on-one drill.
Having won three out of the past four mini-scrimmages in the four-on-four drill. The most recent game: 11-2, guys.
At least scoring on the putback after the face-kicking incident made it all worth it.
And, perhaps one of the highlights of this whole endeavor: getting a jersey a couple of weeks ago. Of course, that’s not to say it’s never been a temptation to walk around campus with it on, pretending to be part of what you might call the “athletics showcase of Utah State,” or, as some of you know it, the men’s basketball team.
If I ever actually get the pride to carry out such an idea, I can just keep in mind Stacey Howard’s arm-bar to the face during a post drill the very day after the first installment in this series was printed, about how I had (still embarrassingly) knocked her to the floor on a block.
It goes without saying that she has drawn a charge when defending me in the post as part as the four-on-four drill. I will go to my grave insisting it was a block, by the way. But I digress. The off-balance shot rimmed out anyway.
But in the midst of both these “I-can’t-believe-that-happened” moments, as well as those of pure validation moments, I truly feel a desire to be a part of this team in practice as much as possible. Lord knows how much I could use the conditioning drills myself. How disappointed was I on Monday, when I couldn’t take part in the conditioning drills, when partners switched off running ladders, due to an already-even number of participants!
As much as anything, this whole thing has helped me realize – with collective attention to detail and effort – how good this team can be.
Preseason second-team all-WAC guard Amber White can light it up from the outside and in penetration. Diop has the potential to be a force in the middle. Ashlee Brown is an athletic bruiser in the post. Alice Coddington can be as smooth as a Cadillac in running the offense.
I’m just hoping to not be a roadblock, but a bridge to greater things for this well-oiled machine we call the Aggie women’s basketball team.
Rhett Wilkinson is spending the preseason as a member of the scout team for the Utah State woman’s basketball team. He can ontact him at landon.h@aggiemail.usu.edu