Girls Just Want to Have Fun

For the first 39 minutes, 54 seconds of Saturday's game, Central Missouri women's basketball coach Dave Slifer's constant yammering with the referees made him the target of taunts and catcalls from the Truman State crowd.

Then Slifer found a way to win over even the most hostile opposing fans with a display of good sportsmanship.

Since it was Truman State's final home game and the home team trailed by 11 with only six seconds remaining, coach Michael Smith inserted injured senior Cassie Hunt so the crowd could applaud for her one final time. The reserve center suffered a season-ending torn ACL in early January and had just undergone surgery the previous week.

Inserting a player not listed in the scorebook typically results in a technical foul, but Slifer asked the referees to waive that rule. Then he instructed his team to allow Truman State to roll the ball down the court and leave Hunt open underneath the rim so that she could score a basket in her final game.

"When she came up to the scorer's bench, she was tearing up and she was really emotional," Slifer said by phone. "For some reason it hit me, hey, let's try and let her score. We went ahead and let her get a basket and I'm sure that's something she'll remember forever." 

This is why girl sports is like watching paint dry. Like waiving the technical foul of letting this girl in the game in the first place is ridiculous. This is basketball it's not football. You can't decline a penalty. Now you're just making up rules, your letting people score, and you wonder why there's approximately 45 people in the stands. The highlight of my year would have been if this girl missed the shot. I mean I've missed layups like that on the regular. I would have laughed so hard I'd have had milk coming out of my nose, and I haven't drank any milk in like two weeks.  

P.S. This girl's name is Cassie Hunt. On the box score it would show up as C. Hunt. Living a lifetime of name-shame is more unfortunate than tearing your ACL and not being able to play your senior season.