Any time the Duke women beat the UNC women, which lately is anytime they
play, the post-game fun isn't complete without a crack from Sylvia
Hatchell. Today's candidate: "It was a physical game and that was in their favor. The game, the way it was played, was not good for the ACC."
This follows her comments from one of the games earlier this year, where she
said she needed to get the UNC football team to practice with her team to make
them more physical. This led to a number of people pointing out that
they'd seen UNC's football team, and they weren't sure it would help much.
As far as the physicality of the game goes, perhaps Sylvia should go look at
the game tape (first half) where she'll see Leah Metcalf knocking Alana Beard on
her butt during a dead ball situation. You can't get much more physical
than that.
After the game, Iciss Tillis said that the "maliciousness" of that
act really fired Duke up.
So two things for Sylvia: 1) Metcalf's aggression led to Duke's raising their
intensity a notch, so maybe you should talk to your own team first, and 2) a
physical game plan only works if the other team can't counter it. That's
what coaching is about. Try it sometime! It's more fun than whining!