...More like debacle

By Nathan Hathaway

There’s no glass ceiling at the Save Mart Center.

In fact, the roof of the SMC seems to rocket women to the top.

Case in point: At Wed-nesday’s Bulldog Basketball Extra-vaganza (a.k.a. the Bulldog Athletic Atrocity), members of the women’s basketball team won both the slam-dunk contest and the 3-point shootout.

The outcome of the dunk contest can be blamed on the fans. The sparse crowd cheered much louder for sophomore Nikki Wilson’s two dull dunks on an 8-foot hoop than for Renaldo Major’s multiple impressive slams on a standard rim.

Things just got ridiculous when, in the finals, Wilson ran to the other end of the floor and tried to jam on the 10-foot basket—all that stood in the way of the 6-foot-3 Wilson nailing her dunk were the rim and her jumping ability.

In spite of Wilson’s lackluster showing and Major’s high-flying act, the skittish, slightly exaggerated decibel meter in the SMC (That’s a topic for another Friday) hit 112 when the audience cheered for Major and 127 when they applauded Wilson’s efforts.

So shame on the announced crowd of 9,800—many of whom, apparently, came disguised as empty red seats—for unfairly tilting the scales in the women’s favor in the dunk contest.

But the 3-point contest was a far worse debacle. You see, by the time the 15-shot competition was whittled down to the finals between Shantay Legans and Veronica Mack, someone had forgotten how to count.

The two nearly matched each other shot for shot through the first 12 long balls. As Legans and Mack entered the last station at about the same time, Legans had a 9-7 lead. Mack would have to hit three to have a chance of winning. Legans hit his last shot. Mack hit all three. As would be expected, nine and one equaled 10 for Legans. But by some mathematical miracle, seven and three added up to 11 for Mack on Wednesday, and she won the 3-point contest 11-10.

Legans took it with a grain of salt, even though he knew the truth.

“ She hit 10,” Legans said. “It was all in good fun. They didn’t want to go any later. We were already behind schedule anyway as it was.

“ You’ve got to say she beat me. She beat me fair and square.”

Mack was adamant that she did beat Legans and was pretty pleased about it.

“ It feels great,” said Mack, who has a class with Legans. “He always likes to talk about how bad girls are and how bad we suck, and then he got beat by one.

“ I just wanted to beat him to say I beat him. It was kinda personal. I wouldn’t care if I lost. It’s nice, though. I wasn’t expecting much.”

It was nice that these teams got to break in the Save Mart Center. Unfortunately, someone broke the glass above the rafters and gave the women an undeserved boost.