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Bird's the word Male or female, nobody was better than UConn starPosted: Thursday April 04, 2002 3:05 PM
The best college basketball player in America this year was a girl, Sue Bird of the University of Connecticut. I know, I know, a good men's team from a rec league almost surely would handle the perfect unbeaten 39-0 Huskies in a real game, and male guards from Division III schools would post her up, overpower her, score at will, but I don't care. I'd rather watch Sue Bird play than all the players in the men's Final Four put together. Running the UConn show, she was style and grace and ingenuity. She knew when to pass, when to shoot, when to look one way and go in a completely different direction. She had the subtleties of this game down so much better than any of the male college stars -- and most of the pros, too -- it was ridiculous. She made Duke's Jason Williams , the men's player of the year, look positively boring. The game of the head in men's college basketball has long been replaced by the game of the body, jumping ability and strength blasting away the playbooks. The men's game is a one-on-one jamboree. The women, without the same physical abilities, are landlocked in the basketball past, still thinking, still picking and rolling and working without the ball, running plays that resemble chess gambits, working that old-time, intricate dance. Few have ever danced better than Susan Bird. The spirit of Cousy, of Pistol Pete, of Nate "Tiny" Archibald still lives ... but in a girl. Leigh Montville's commentaries appear regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated.
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