After 4:31 of less than scintillating play by the Sacramento Monarchs, I heard the first audible grumble.
`Get an offense,' a fan cried, obviously accustomed to the lack of one after years of following the dismal Kings.
So much for the WNBA's honeymoon in Arco Arena.
But then again, there were 15,529 in attendance for the nuptial rites, and some of them are bound to come back -- even though the hometown club put on a pretty awful show. The fans were dying to cheer for something, anything, but unfortunately it was 15-3 New York before you could blink, and it never got any better. The final 73-62 score was deceptive, for the Liberty led by more than 20 in the second half and never had less than a double-digit lead after that early burst.
And those expecting some miraculous difference between the WNBA and the ABL were probably the same people who thought that interleague play would unveil some huge chasm between the American and National leagues. They were wrong.
Both the WNBA and ABL have lots of good players, but not enough to fill out eight full rosters each. Both the WNBA and ABL had almost no preseason to speak of, and quite obviously, nobody on the floor early in the year knew (or knows) what to expect from anyone else, on either side. And both the WNBA and ABL were greeted by adoring fans who wanted to cheer but were frustrated by sloppy play.
By season's end, of course, the ABL no longer was plagued by sloppiness, and if the WNBA played 40 games, the same would be true. Twenty-eight games, though, will remove most of the bugs that were oh-so-visible Monday night at Arco -- but they won't make Chantel Tremitiere into a professional point guard, and without that transformation, Sacramento Coach Mary Murphy is clearly going have to play Ruthie Bolton-Holifield at the point if she wants to win any games.
Tremitiere would be considered Exhibit A by those who contend the ABL has all the guards and the WNBA has all the posts, but she's certainly better than Michelle Marciniak, who started for Portland for most of the season. Unfortunately for Tremitiere, she wasn't playing against Marciniak but rather the very good defense of Teresa Weatherspoon and Rhonda Blades -- and the Monarchs' offense thus consisted of Tremitiere dribbling aimlessly at the top of the key while steadily being forced back to halfcourt. Eventually she would give the ball up to Bolton, who would do something (often wonderful) with it.
Ruthie, however, often did less than wonderful things with the smaller ball (missing 14 shots and turning the ball over five times), and if she didn't deliver, no one else did either. The veteran Pam McGee, touted as one of the premier big people in the league, played just 20 minutes (after only 18 in the opener) and pouted whenever she came out of the game. She also played poorly while she was in there, being dominated by the Liberty's Kym Hampton (definitely the real deal).
No one else did much for Sacramento, but New York is obviously a very good team. And call me cynical, but how is it that the secret WNBA draft managed to load the New York and L.A. rosters with the most talent? Could there be a hidden agenda to make sure the teams in the biggest media markets are playing in the championship game? Could the WNBA be that marketing-oriented? (There is one problem with this grand conspiracy theory, however -- the Sparks look lost, have no outside shooting and may not even make the playoffs.)
No matter. However the talent was assembled, Coach Nancy Darsch knows what to do with it. She's got the point guard, she's got the center, she's got the shooter (Vickie Johnson) and she's got depth. And oh yes, there's that Lobo woman you might have seen on TV now and again. She's a pretty good player, too, but she's maybe the third best player on New York, and should take advantage of every endorsement and minute of fame she can muster before the general public wakes up to her limitations.
Nonetheless, she's a problem to guard, given her ability to shoot threes and her fallaway inside game. Witherspoon will score if mistakes are made and rookie Kisha Ford from Georgia Tech is clearly going to have a good career in women's pro basketball.
Which leads, naturally, to the question of which women's pro basketball league will survive. The attendance at the WNBA games shows that people will watch basketball in the summer, and thus there's no reason to send the pros head-to-head against the college and high school games. (I coach in high school and the girls on my team simply never had time to go to many San Jose Laser games -- they're either playing or practicing themselves. In the summer, though, it's a different story, and they're already talking about taking a team trip to Sacramento.)
So merge the leagues, play in the summer and hone the game until the substance matches the hype, and there's no doubt women's pro basketball is here to stay.
I must concede, though, that the honeymoon in Sacramento was awfully short.
6/23/97