Every year, the Atlantic Coast Conference holds a tournament for all the women's basketball teams that play in that conference. And almost every year, that tournament is held in the Greensboro Coliseum in the aptly named Greensboro, North Carolina. That was only a short drive for several teams in the conference, like us, NC State and Wake Forest. Several of the other teams had slightly longer drives or flights to make, but it was well situated for hosting just such a tournament.
The way the tournament worked, the higher ranked teams got the advantage of automatically qualifying for the later rounds, while the lower ranked teams had to play every round to keep advancing. As the top ranked team in the conference, we were automatically qualified for the final eight, and we ended up playing against Georgia Tech in our first game.
They were a decent team, but finished with as many losses as wins, and our game against them was an easy one, as we beat them by 20 points. At this stage of the tournament, style points didn't matter, we just wanted to win and stay healthy. If we were all in good shape, we knew we could play as well as any team in the country. Which is why we were worried when our second game, in the semifinals, was against NC State.
They had been the number four team and had won to advance to play us to get to the championship game. We knew we could beat them, handily at that, but staying healthy with them might be a different matter. I definitely didn't want another concussion!
"Don't expose yourself to them, okay?" Skye said before the game.
I put my goggles on while handing her my engagement ring and gave her a nod. "Yeah, I plan to keep it simple. I'm not going to elevate this time, no dunking. I just want to get through this game and onto the next." We didn't know who we were playing in the next round, it would be either Louisville or Notre Dame, but they played in the game after us. We'd beaten Louisville earlier in the year, and Notre Dame was our lone loss. I really wanted redemption for that!
"Just play your game, you'll be fine," she assured me. "You've been kicking ass out there lately!" She had a point. As the games were getting harder, it seemed as though Leah, Imani and myself were getting better. We fed off each other's intensity, so it was easy to get fired up when one of the others was on a roll. Bryn and Dayana were playing their complementary games too, and the attention paid to us gave them wide open looks multiple times per game. We were rounding into shape at the perfect time.
"Go sit with your moms, I'll see you after the game, beautiful." I gave her a quick kiss before heading out to the court for warmups, breathing evenly as I started to get loose. I was feeling good, nothing was going to stop us tonight. I took a look down at the other end of the court and was surprised to see Tegan looking a lot better than the last time we played. Maybe she finally got her life in order? It wasn't going to matter, at least I hoped, we were still going to crush them. I wasn't trying to be cocky, since I knew that any team could beat another on any given day, but it just seemed like we had their number because we had too much motivation on our side.
After warmups, we settled in for the tip off to start the game. Tegan took the jump for NC State, while I took it for us. "You're going down tonight, Rivers," she boasted before the referee tossed the ball in the air.
"Damn right I am!" I scoffed. "My fiancé lets me do that every night!"
"Fuck you!"
"That's her job too, sorry!" It wasn't like I was trying to get under her skin this game, but she did start it. I wasn't going to just sit there and not give a little crap back to her.
When the referee tossed the ball up, I jumped up, tipping it over to Dayana, who passed it quickly to Leah, and we were off. I'll say this, Tegan was playing out of her mind. They had a new trick that they were trying, sending her through multiple screens to get her matched up with someone smaller than me, and she started knocking down three pointers.
But it didn't matter. Her team was trying so hard to get her going, that the rest of her teammates were not playing their regular game. So, at halftime, while Tegan already had 22 points, we still had a comfortable 48-34 lead, and I'd made sure to get several dunks on Tegan that would look wonderful on a poster. I could tell that Tegan was getting upset at the score, and the dunks, and it made me smile as I ran up and down the court. Maybe she thought that with her playing and scoring well, it would be enough to get them a win. It doesn't work that way. In contrast, we were much more balanced, with Leah, Imani and me each having eight points, and Dayana draining three pointers and leading us in scoring with a dozen points.
In the second half, things got even worse for them. Leah caught fire, and was hitting almost every shot she was taking, and then Tegan's team just started playing nasty. She was throwing elbows and hips, while Tia and Jen were tripping people and just playing dirty whenever they could.
During the next time out, Coach Bates was brutally honest. "All right ladies, we've seen what they're doing. I want to slow down every possession so we can minimize it. Drag out every possession. I don't want anyone shooting with more than ten seconds left on the shot clock. Just keep playing tight defense and they won't be able to catch us. I'll talk to the referees and see if they can start calling some of these fouls that they're letting slide, because otherwise it's going to get out of hand."
We all nodded at that, figuring if we slowed the game down, they wouldn't have so many chances to trip us and stuff. Coach was true to her word too and talked to the referees about the direction of the game, and they nodded as though they would do something like talking to Coach Austin to get her players under control. They didn't. I guess the refs thought that tournament basketball should be played by football rules.
The new plan worked, and while we weren't scoring as much as we had because we took less shots, they couldn't catch up because we were wasting time just standing and dribbling. They may have hated it, but they couldn't do much to stop us unless they hit virtually every shot they took. They tried, and near the end of the third quarter had closed the score to only a dozen points after Melissa hit a layup. We knew we were going to have to score more and went back to our old way of playing.
The next time down the floor, they missed a three pointer, and Leah passed me the ball as I ran down the court for what I thought was going to be an easy layup. Tegan thought differently though, and maybe assumed I was going to dunk it, because she barreled straight through me while I was in midair, hitting my head with her elbow before virtually tackling me into the stanchion that holds the net up, face first.
I felt a sickening crunch, and fell to my knees, my hand over my nose as blood started trickling from it. There were yells and screams from behind me, and I turned to see Dayana wrestling with Tegan on the ground, and the rest of the girls pushing each other. It wasn't pretty. The refs were blowing their whistles, but it took a while to get everything calmed down.
While they were doing that, Kari raced to my side, a cloth in her hand that she put over my nose. "Tilt your head back." She applied a compress as I followed her commands, somewhat happy my nose took the hit this time, so I didn't black out.
"How bad is it?" I asked a little woozily.
"You probably have a broken nose, and Coach is going to kill some refs. We'll have to get you checked out for another concussion, hard to say though. How are you feeling?"
"Sore!" I groaned. I felt arms wrap around me, though I couldn't see who it was. "But otherwise okay!"
"Babe! Are you okay?" Skye whispered in my ear, answering my question. "That looked like it hurt!"
"It's just my nose. I'll be fine," I assured her. Knowing my luck, my nose would be squished or twisted or something.
"You better still be able to breathe when you go down on me!" she said, to lighten the mood, making Kari choke with laughter. "I guess I better do that for you till you're better!"
"You're killing me!" I hope she didn't mind waiting, my nose was feeling all stuffed up and I didn't think I could breathe through it. "You know I'd still try!"
"You better not!" Kari commanded. "Can we get you checked out before you start trying to scuba dive on your fiancé?"
"I'm sorry, we make a lot of silly sex jokes when we're messed up." I could only shrug.
"I can understand that," Kari agreed. "I do that with my... Umm. My friends."
Well, that was interesting again. Was our trainer in a relationship that she wasn't going to talk about? It reminded me a little about the soccer team that had visited us, though I wasn't sure if that could be it. It would explain the secrecy though, not that I'd tell anyone about my suspicions. I was curious though.
I saw Coach Bates pushing through the crowd now that the refs had settled people down and she was looking down at me while Kari kept the compress on me "How are you holding up?"
"I'm okay coach," I promised. "I can play."
"No chance," Kari stated. "You had a concussion two months ago, and just took another blow to the head. We need to get you checked out. Not to mention the probable broken nose. You're not playing."
Coach nodded, agreeing with the statement. "I know you want to play, but we'll need you in the next game. Let's get you checked out. Tegan got another flagrant foul and was ejected from the game. We're going to be talking to both the conference and the NCAA about her actions though. She can't keep acting like this. They have suspensions for fighting, but this is obviously a personal vendetta against you based on your history."
"Yeah, I think we can all agree on that."
"Bitch," Skye muttered. "If they keep letting her play, she's going to really hurt you again."
"I can handle her, beautiful. Don't sweat it."
They ended up having to take me back to the locker room once the game was back from a television time out. The team all gave me high fives, and Imani sank the free throws from Tegan's foul since I couldn't shoot them. With Tegan gone, NC State looked down and embarrassed, where our team was back to being pissed. I knew they were in good shape.
I guess it was time to find out how badly I was hurt.
Again.