The Yankees aren't going to the playoffs, the Mets are doing and in-out-in teeter, and the Liberty are in the second round. Looks like that means Joshua Robinson is now the NYTimes' Lib beat writer, and this morning he has a piece on a "Wise Old Veteran at 26."

Christon, a 6-foot-1 small forward, has not hesitated putting up a shot since she began playing basketball at 14 in her hometown, Hot Springs, Ark. At the time though, her confidence did her little good. Shot after shot would go wide, fall short, bounce off the rim, dropping anywhere but through the net. The only thing that kept her going was her desire to prove two people wrong: her middle school coach and her mother.

“ ‘You’re tall, but you’re just raw meat and you’ll never make it as a basketball player,’ ” Christon remembered her coach telling her. “And then my mom told me, ‘If you can’t handle it, if you can’t take it, then it’s really not for you.’ ”