Mechelle on Amanda Thompson:

Before it could even really feel like an epically bad start, something to be rued throughout the summer -- if not forever -- Amanda Thompson's tea kettle really started to boil.

Her Oklahoma Sooners simply had to get their act together. This was not going to be her last game. There was no chance her team was getting blown out. Sure, the score was 15-2. So what? Where she'd come from in Chicago, lots of people start life down 15-2. And they never catch up.

Thompson left that city, and all that was good and bad about it, to play for Oklahoma's Sherri Coale, someone who would totally understand her. Now, four years later, near the end of her time with Coale, Thompson was looking around the court in the regional final against Kentucky thinking, "What is this nonsense? What are we doing? Since when don't we play defense?"