About Doris Burke...
by cbiebel (2021-12-24 14:02:36)
Edited on 2021-12-24 14:03:35

In reply to: A Great Hall of Fame Coach Tarnishes Her Legacy  posted by NYC Fan


Two things stick out in my mind. One was likely a Freudian slip which I can kind of excuse, but the other was, for me, an unforgivable case of rumor-mongering on national TV.

The first one came during the Jan 15, 2001 ND-UConn game. For context, UConn was ranked #1, Tennessee was ranked #2, and ND was ranked #3. ND was completely dominating UConn (ND won by 16 points, they were in charge for pretty much the whole game, and it was really only because of Abrosimova that it was even that close). During that game, new came out that Tamika Catchings from Tennessee had gone down with a torn ACL and UT was seriously relying on her that year (think UConn's Buecker situation this year, but even more so).

Burke then asks "Who should now be #1?" She mentions that considering how the ND-UConn game is going and the injury to Catchings, of course you have to consider Tennessee as #1... (What?) You can tell by the setup that she meant to say ND, but in the back of her mind, she just couldn't get out the name of a team other than UConn or UT.

The second one came in 2012. The previous year ND had beaten UConn in the Semifinals when everyone was sure the Finals was going to be UConn-Baylor (Neither of those teams made the Final. ND lost to Texas A&M in the Finals). ND was returning almost everyone, having only graduated Becca Bruszewski. UConn had graduated Maya Moore. So the Big East coaches voted ND to win the Big East instead of UConn. It was a big deal.

So.... Of course Geno Auriemma starts telling some story badmouthing ND. Doris Burke decides to run with the rumor mongering and talks about it during the ND-UConn game. She says how if what she heard about had happened, she hoped that Muffet McGraw would have disciplined the player in question. Note: She said "If what I heard was true..." She didn't try to verify it. She just took what Auriemma said as gospel and decided to publicly attack ND during a nationally televised game. So what was this story? Well, I don't know the specifics of what SHE heard, but here is how it unfolded online in the various message boards.

First, they claimed that a ND player poked her head into the UConn locker-room after the game and yelled "Sucks to be you!"

However, quite a few people questioned how security would allow a ND player to have access to the UConn locker-room. So.....

It then became "After the game a ND player yelled 'Sucks to be you' outside the UConn locker-room."

However, once again people questioned that, since the two locker-rooms were on opposite ends of the court, security wouldn't have let the ND player be down the hall where the UConn locker-room was located. So....

The story then morphed into "She said it to UConn during the post-game handshake line."

Well...

It turned out that they found out who the supposed player in question was (Becca Bruszewski) and were finally able to contact her about it (She had been playing in Europe at the time. Sorry, Doris, but no way for McGraw to punish a player who had graduated!). She said that she basically said "Sucks to be them" to one of her teammates and apparently Auriemma had overheard her. It was never used as a taunt against UConn. It was something between teammates.

So yeah, fuck Doris Burke.