I'm watching the Indiana-TCU game on ESPN2...

[YCN]

right now.

Indiana's Coach Bennett looks like the Bride of Frankenstein in that halo she's wearing. Does anybody know how she got a broken neck?

The game is 33-29 TCU with 10:45 left in the game - not exactly a shootout.

These two teams apparently were assigned to be the cannon fodder for Duke in the second round. But honestly, traveling from Indiana and Texas? So much for regionalizaton.

It just seems to me that everything the committee has done has been in the interest of making sure that Duke and Connecticut get to the title game.

I sure hope someone from the Big XII - preferably my Sooners, of course! - does something to derail any chance of that.

As much as the NCAA (and perhaps the broadcasting powers-to-be) would like it, this isn't necessarily going to be the Sue Bird-Swin Cash-Diana Taurasi-Asjha Jones-Tamika Williams-Alana Beard-Iciss Tillis-Sheana Mosch-Wynter Whitley-Monique Curry National Championship Game.

[YCN]

And by the way, another reason why Duke doesn't really deserve this kind of love from the national press - it doesn't appear that their are more than 1-2 thousand people in the arena for this game.

Shame on those folks. At least last year when the Sooners hosted and played the early game, several thousand stayed to watch the second game.

[mred]

Originally posted by YCN:
Indiana's Coach Bennett looks like the Bride of Frankenstein in that halo she's wearing. Does anybody know how she got a broken neck?


She was in a bad car accident a month ago. She's lucky to be able to coach at all.

[YCN]

mred, out of my curiousity, would you happen to know if the air bags deployed in Coach Bennett's vehicle, assuming that it was a frontal collision?

[ISUbballfan]

This is all I can find about the accident:

Jokes and spunk come a long way from the tears and worry experienced after 9 a.m. Friday, when Bennett's vehicle hit an oncoming vehicle as she tried to make a left turn onto Linglebach Lane off 17th St. Bennett was not wearing a seatbelt. A halo device, a type of neck brace, was screwed into her skull Saturday to stabilize her neck so that the fracture could heal on its own.
From the idsnews.com

[mred]

I know nothing beyond what ISU said.

[YCN]

I tell everyone that I know to wear their seatbelts.

Back a couple of years ago when I was living in Oklahoma, I had some friends who I absolutely could not convince to buckle up. One of them (a co-worker) endured a very unfortunate incident in which her son was involved in a near-fatal single vehicle accident (he was speeding on a gravel road) where his vehicle was launched through the air into a tree. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, and is now paralyzed from the neck down. Even worse, unfortunately, he has been reduced to a mental age similar to a 3-year old child.

It's very sad, and I warned them, but she insisted that it was much more dangerous to wear a seatbelt, because you could be trapped in a car, and either burn to death or drown when the vehicle was submerged.

Honestly, I tried as much as I could to convince this person otherwise, but she just wouldn't listen to me.

Please, everyone - wear your seatbelt all of the time. It is stupid to become a statistic for no other reason.

[swok34]

I was watching the TCU/Indiana game.........what a boring game, I fell asleep for the entire 2nd half.

I think Kathi Bennett is lucky to be alive, much less on the floor coaching.......I read a really good article last week in the USA Today that if it had been just a cm either way, she would not be alive......

I also think a lot of schools who are hosting, Duke, in this case...
don't have GREAT attendance for the game where their team is not involved. Not unless you have a "big-time" headliner......

[ISUbballfan]

I found the article that swok was talking about. Wow I didn't know that it was that close. Coach Bennett is very lucky.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/basketball/women/stories/2002-03-07-focus.htm

[swok34]

After stopping for coffee a mile from Assembly Hall, she hopped in the car and, uncharacteristically, did not fasten her seat belt

Thank you for finding the article, ISU......I had briefly read it in KC. I am VERY, VERY guilty of the exact same thing in regards to seat belts. If I'm only going around the block, I have a tendency sometimes to not put it on........NO MORE.

YCN........OU is hosting teams from coast to coast..

Hartford, Connecticut
Pepperdine, California
Villanova,.......somewhere up east, ?Pennsylvania.

[This message has been edited by swok34 (edited 03-16-2002).]

[This message has been edited by swok34 (edited 03-16-2002).]