Harvard women's basketball co-captain Allison Feaster began the season with a nagging knee injury that kept her out of practice for much of the preseason.
Yet in the team's first game, a 90-80 exhibition win against Roto Banska Bystrica of Slovakia, Feaster scored 30 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and dished out five assists.
After the game, women's basketball Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith told two Crimson reporters that what we saw against Slovakia was just the tip of the iceberg.
"This woman is going to bring the Ivy League to a level of play it has not seen yet," she said. "You did not see it tonight."
The reporters sighed, for they had heard such embellishment before.
Sparky Anderson, the former Tigers and Reds manager, was famous for it: "Milt Cuyler will make people forget the name Willie Mays." Needless to say, people are still remembering the `Say Hey' kid.
The reporters were quite familiar with Feaster's antics. This was the same woman who had been named Ivy League Rookie of the Year and an Honorable Mention All-American her freshman season, the same woman who was already acknowledged as the best player the Ivy League women's game had ever seen.
But Delaney-Smith insisted that for some reason, this year would be different. Feaster's off season workouts had improved her game--and her sculpted triceps--exponentially. Her shot was sweeter, her box outs more forceful, her sights set higher.
"I definitely came into this season with a different attitude," Feaster says. "I worked out really hard over the summer with my boyfriend, [former North Carolina State swingman Danny Strong]. I knew that this last year was exactly that--my last year to play with four great seniors, win a championship and win in the Tournament."
An NCAA Tournament win: the difference between a team and a program. An ambitious goal for any Ivy League school whose name does not begin with `P'.
Feaster had certainly built her castles in the air, but she spent the season laying the foundations beneath each one.
First there were the individual honors. The typically modest Feaster rewrote the Harvard record books early and often.
On Nov. 30 against Mount St. Mary's, she took over as Harvard's career scoring leader, surpassing the mark of 1,605 set by Tammy Butler '95. She already held the Harvard career steals record entering the season, and she added the all-time rebounding mark to her belt on February 13 against Cornell.
Of course by now Feaster's Harvard records seem like small potatoes, for the Ivy record books suffered a similar fate. The League's all-time scoring mark went down January 26, when Feaster poured in 32 points against Lehigh to eclipse the 1,933 points of Gail Koziara (Dartmouth '82).
Then, on January 31, with 36 points against Yale at Lavietes Pavilion, Feaster became just the second Ivy League basketball player ever to score 2,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds in a career. The first was Bill Bradley (Princeton'65), the NBA Hall of Famer and former U.S. Senator.
It was quickly becoming clear that Feaster was among the best players Ivy League basketball--men's or women's--had ever seen.
By then the Ivy women's single-season scoring record, which she broke February 20 Feaster finished the season first in scoring,14th nationally in rebounding (10.8 per game) and16th in steals (3.3 per game). She was thecomplete package, recording 12 30-point games and20 double-doubles, and hitting .406 from beyondthe three-point arc, a marked improvement over herprevious three seasons. Meanwhile her team overall was having anot-too-shabby season itself. Needless to say,Feaster was no small part of the team's thirdstraight Ivy championship and 23-5 record, best inschool history. There may not be an `I' in team, but there isan `F'. If the company line--that there was moreto this team than Allison Feaster--is true, itcertainly had its share of tests throughout theseason. Feaster always seemed to come up big whenit counted--from her school-record 39 points toavenge last season's loss to Loyola and helpHarvard win its own Invitational for the firsttime in a decade to her 17-point, 11-reboundsecond-half performance to lead Harvard to acome-from-behind win in its rematch againstPrinceton, who earlier in the season had handedthe Crimson its first Ivy loss in two years. Her greatness was by no means uniform. Shescored just 19 points and shot 33 percent from thefloor in regulation of an overtime win over Brownon January 30. But sometimes Feaster was good evenwhen she was bad, as she tallied nine of herteam's 12 overtime points--jumper, three-pointer,blocked shot, lay-up, two free throws with sevenseconds to go--ballgame. Typical. Feaster was rewarded for her tremendous seasonwith Ivy Player of the Year honors--making her thefirst Ivy League athlete ever to win Rookie of theYear and then to thrice take home Player of theYear honors--as well as an AP Honorable MentionAll-American selection. She had not been placed on the AP NationalPlayer of the Year ballot and had not earnedFirst, Second or Third-Team honors. HonorableMention was darn good for an Ivy Leaguer, but manyconsidered it a slight. Indeed, her task was not complete. Still shewas a good Harvard player, a good IvyLeague, player, a good women's player. She needed Palo Alto. Big, bad Stanford, teamof the '90s, participant in each of the threeprevious Final Fours, winners of 59 straight atMaples Pavilion, but as unable to overcome kneeinjuries to All-American Kristin Folkl and VanessaNygaard as the dream of Allison Feaster. Feaster's 35 points and 13 rebounds were onlythe beginning. She shot with confidence, evenbanking in a three on a fast break at one point;forced Stanford Honorable Mention All-AmericanOlympia Scott into foul trouble; and notchedseveral key steals, including the two biggest inHarvard basketball history. With Stanford up one in the closing minutes,Feaster missed a shot and Scott took offdowncourt, eager to catch the baseball pass andput in the lay-up that would drive the final stakethrough the Crimson's heart. But Feaster was still short of her goal; shewas not ready to go back to Cambridge just yet.She sprinted downcourt and, while facing Scott,leaped high into the passing lane and tipped thepass from point guard Milena Flores to put theball back in Harvard's court. Then, after Harvard took a four-point lead onjunior Suzie Miller's now-infamous trifecta,Feaster ripped the ball from Scott's hands on apost play to keep the game out of the Cardinal'sreach. Harvard 71, Stanford 67. Feaster had reached her final castle. She hadhelped to rewrite all of collegiate sportshistory. "Every year we have team goals, and every yearwe seem to fall just a little short of thosegoals," Feaster said. "More than ever, this yearwe've been able to accomplish everything we wantedto do." Harvard had gotten the nation's attention, andso had Feaster. Soon after the Stanford win, shewas one of just 10 players in the country named aKodak All-American. She also earned ECAC Player ofthe Year honors, ahead of players from 60 otherschools, including UConn standout and NationalPlayer of the Year candidate Nykesha Sales. The ESPN commentators gushed at halftime of theStanford game about her "guns and game," andFeaster was the main topic of conversation atevery press conference before and after both theHarvard-Stanford game and the subsequent Harvardloss to Arkansas. Before his team's second-round game againstHarvard, Arkansas Coach Gary Blair half praisedand half lamented Feaster's versatility. "You do not stop Allison Feaster," he said."She presents a severe matchup problem for us. Doyou call her a forward, or do you call her a post?I call her a basketball player." After the game, the Arkansas players were insimilar awe of her abilities. "She's just as good as [National Player of theYear Chamique] Holdsclaw, just shorter," saidArkansas guard Sytia Messer, whose team plays inthe SEC along with Holdsclaw's national-championLady Vols. One week from today; Feaster will begin acareer in the WNBA, where basketball is basketballand athletes are athletes. There, as a member ofthe Los Angeles Sparks, she will build new castlesand lay new foundations. "Last summer I watched a lot of the WNBA games,and it looked like a cool thing to do," Feastersays. "But I never believed in my chances untilafter Stanford and being Kodak All-American." Feaster, the fifth overall pick in the April 29draft, is the WNBA's golden child. As much apublicity engine as a basketball league, theleague loves the fact that Feaster is a Harvardgrad, turned down a Wall Street job to play prohoops and is part of the Cinderella squad thatfinally did it. She decorates the front of the Sparks' website, already has shot an ad for Lady Foot Lockerand appeared at halftime at two NBA playoffgames--one in New York and one in L.A.--to promoteherself and the league. "Allison is not only a great player, but Ithink she's going to be a tremendous ambassadorfor the game," said WNBA Director of PlayerPersonnel Renee Brown after Feaster signed withthe league. Okay, Coach Delaney-Smith, we believe you. Your statement was incomplete, however. Yes,Feaster raised her game and the entire level ofplay in the Ivy League to new heights. But the winover Stanford that she helped engineer raisedcollegiate women's basketball to a new level. Perhaps no other event better symbolizes theemergence of the collegiate women's game from itsadolescence. Never again can some cocky men'sbasketball fan boast of his league of choice as ashrine to parity and competitiveness. Gone are thedays when a few female standouts from programslike Louisiana Tech, Tennessee and Stanford werethe league's lone ambassadors. So, Allison Feaster, for leading your team toone of the greatest upsets in college basketballhistory, we salute you. For being among thegreatest athletes in Harvard history--male orfemale--we salute you. For putting not justHarvard basketball, but Harvard athletics, on thenational map, we salute you. "I can't believe the things I'm doing nowbecause of playing basketball at Harvard," Feastersays. Neither can we. Years from now, some basketball coach in somecorner of the country will see a young player whoseems to have the complete package--she can spotup or shoot off the dribble with ease, she tearsdown rebounds with reckless abandon, she cananchor herself in the post, but defenders can'tplant their feet too firmly when guarding her onthe perimeter, lest they get burned by a drive tothe hole. "She'll make people forget the name AllisonFeaster," the coach will tell campus reporters. If they know anything about Feaster, thereporters will simply shrug it off.
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