Rob Oller commentary: Seniors put team before themselves
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
By Rob Oller
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
PITTSBURGH - Behind every successful basketball team are teammates not as successful as they would like to be. They are called backups, and their attitudes can energize a season or ruin it like a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Four seniors dot the Ohio State women's basketball team roster. All play, but none is a starter. One of them, Shavelle Little, started 53 games the past two seasons, when she twice was voted Big Ten defensive player of the year. But so far this season, she has remained on the bench at the opening tip. Another senior, Maria Moeller, started 35 games her freshman season and three as a sophomore, but none since. Andrea Walker started one game last year. None before or since. Cherise Daniel has no starts in four seasons.
And yet this senior class will leave OSU with more wins than any in school history, having moved past the previous record of 109 with Sunday's NCAA Tournament first-round win over St. Francis (Pa.). Number 111 could come tonight against Mississippi State.
"We were just here at the right time," said a self-deprecating Little, her 5-foot-8 frame resting against a wall in the Petersen Events Center on the Pittsburgh campus.