And another thing . . .
what the whole Imus debate has taken away is the spotlight from the fact that the Rutgers women’s basketball team had an incredible season . . .
Said Stringer: “While all of you come to talk about this great story, this Don Imus story, in the translation you have lost what this is really all about. At the beginning of the year, we were humiliated. But through perseverance and hard work, determination, ultimately they ended up playing for the national championship. And no one believed in them but them. That’s the greatest story. It’s not where you came from, but where you’re going, not where you start, but where you finish.”
With five freshmen and no seniors on its 10-player roster, Rutgers lost its first two games of the season and stood at 5-5 after 10 games. Players studied film and practiced for 10 hours daily over winter break, Stringer said, and from that point the Scarlet Knights won 22 of 25 games before Tennessee beat them in the national championship.
Along the way, Rutgers demonstrated its perseverance with stunning victories. It lost to Connecticut by 26 at home on Feb. 26, then beat U-Conn. by eight points eight days later in Hartford, Conn., to win the Big East tournament, the school’s first league championship. In the NCAA tournament, the Scarlet Knights beat No. 1 Duke, which had throttled Rutgers by 40 points in December. Stringer told her players then they were her worst defensive team in 35 years of coaching. In the Final Four, Rutgers set a semifinal record by allowing just 35 points against LSU.
“You are familiar with what you might think is the story,” said Rutgers Athletic Director Robert E. Mulcahy III, who attended the team’s news conference along with Corzine and the school’s president, Richard L. McCormick. “But the real story is not the despicable and degrading comments issued by Don Imus and his producer. The real story is about the 2007 Rutgers women’s basketball team: their incredible accomplishments, where they came from and how far they went.”
