Thoughts on women
SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - Sorry for the provocative and sensationalist title, but I wanted you to read this one cause this past week I witnessed one of the great basketball tournaments the Americas has produced in recent time. No hyperbole here. It was that good, peaked when it had to peak and had strong storylines off and on the court.
It all began with a Facebook post. Carla Cortijo, star point guard of the Puerto Rico national team wrote the following message about being let go from WNBA's Atlanta Dream due to a release that was not signed by the national federation:
... Carla Cortijo se expresa... pic.twitter.com/C17gmMGV4n
— Natalia Melendez (@Natmelendez5) August 6, 2015
This became number one topic of conversation in the only country in the Americas where basketball is still the number one sport. Everybody claimed discrimination citing the fact that men were never subjected to such "obligations". A hashtag asking for National Federation President Carlos Beltran to resign also became trending topic number one in the island. What a shame, focus was completely off of a team that went to the FIBA Americas Women's Championship in Edmonton and had a good tournament (finished sixth, one spot from making it to the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT).
The team that ended up with that spot and the fifth place was Venezuela. The team made history by advancing to the WOQT and was led by a woman that was THE breakthrough performer of the championship, Roselis Silva, who was an incredible leader throughout.
Silva was also an example of resiliency. In a very suspenseful moment against Argentina, she went down with an shoulder injury that at first looked excruciatingly painful and sure to make her miss the rest of the tournament. It looked so bad that our main stats guy, who is also a doctor (a story for another column) immediately jumped out of the scorers table to help her as she screamed in anguish.
She obviously did not play for the rest of the game and then, next day, left all of us in shock as we entered the venue to see her warming up with the team. She willed them to history. Incredible to watch.
To talk about incredible is to talk about Clenia Noblet. Have you seen her play? If the answer is no, then you've missed a phenom. No hyperbole here either. To me, she was the most incredible player to watch in this 2015.
I'd seen Clenia before, but this was just amazing. To look at her is to see what people call a full-size woman (1.81meter/90.7kg), with the stamina and moves of a guard. She was second in the team in minutes (30.8 per game)!!! Just to see teams and coaches plan for her was astounding. They threw everything at her. Canada for example used a sophisticated substitution pattern that rotated Tamara Tatham, Miranda Ayim, Natalie Achonwa, Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe and Katherine Plouffe and I would see each of them get tired against a Noblet that wouldn't even open her mouth. Her stamina was... wow. She made the All-Star Five of the tournament with a Semi-Final and Final game in which she had 29 points and 15 rebounds and 16 points and 10 boards respectively.
#FIBAAmericasWomen2015 QUINTETO IDEAL @MeliGretter (ARG) K.Nurse(CAN) MVP Y.Amargo(CUB) C.Noblet(CUB) T.Tatham(CAN) pic.twitter.com/eVZKpMdcnV
— Federico Toral (@fedetoral) August 17, 2015
The championship also had an important case with Achonwa and the hiatus she took from playing in the WNBA with the Indiana Fever to represent her country in both the Pan Ams and this FIBA Americas Women's Championship.
Something has to be said about a player that is in the middle of a genuine rookie season in the WNBA (second overall in points per game and fourth in rebounding) and decides to play for her national team coming off the bench. Think about that for a minute. How many players, men or women, would do that? She did and now nobody can take away from her the experience of being a part of this magical summer in which the team won two gold medals at home in less than a month.
But the biggest story is that of her coach, Lisa Thomaidis.
One night, after the day's conclusion we were in the hotel exchanging different ideas and comments about women's basketball when Michele O'Keefe, President/CEO of Canada Basketball and Vice-President of FIBA Americas, put it best by saying "we need more women in the bench".
O'Keefe leads a Canada Basketball that is unlike any other federation in the Americas in terms of the amount of talented and capable women that work for it. So no wonder she zoomed in on a real problem that women's basketball has in our continent: THERE ARE NO WOMEN COACHING!
Thomaidis is the only woman head coach (with women assistants too) and the fact that she won, and so convincingly, I hope opens doors for countries to educate and give opportunities to future women coaches.
Her team was dominant, leading the championship in scoring, rebounding, assists and field goal percentage. But their main ingredient was heart, passion. This is why they will go down as one of the great FIBA Americas teams of all-time.
It is a stereotype in Central, South America and the Caribbean that Canadians are cold, not really emotional or passionate people. This women's team proved the opposite, and the fans at the Saville Community Center went with them.
It was a real scene when they won the championship and it came time to play the anthem in the awards ceremony. The DJ decided to turn off the music and the fans went acapella.
I saw a lot of tears, real emotion, passion.
What a great tournament. Thank you Edmonton.
William Rosario
FIBA
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