It wasn't the performance Tamika Catchings had planned. Especially with Pat Summitt sitting courtside to watch the former University of Tennessee star.
Catchings missed her first six shots from the field and finished with a season-low eight points for the Indiana Fever in a 70-58 loss to the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday in Atlanta.
Catchings, the 2011 league MVP, dropped to 2-for-9 from the field when she missed an 18-footer late in the third.
"I felt like we got a lot of good shots," Catchings said. "We just weren't hitting them today, and we would take the ball to the basket and not be able to finish. It was very bad for us."
Catchings became emotional after the game when asked about Summitt, only saying "it's always great to see Coach" before walking away in tears.
Summitt, UT's head coach emeritus, disclosed she had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, last August. She stepped down as coach of the Lady Vols in April after 38 seasons.
Stopping an opponent as potentially difficult as Catchings, who ranks fifth on the WNBA's career list with 74 double-doubles, was a priority for Atlanta. When they last faced Catchings on May 27, she scored 25 points and pulled down a season-high 12 rebounds in a 16-point Indiana victory.
"We basically know what she wants to do with the ball when she catches it," Atlanta rookie center Aneika Henry said. "She wants to penetrate and go hard to the basket, so we just doubled down on her and helped out with Sancho (Lyttle) on her and stuff like that."
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Comments » 8
Volunteer-Varmint writes:
Everybody has a bad day. Shake it off and go get em next time.
BrassMonkey writes:
Like when we tried to race those bikers. Shake it off. Or the time when we tried to fight that rattle snake. Yeah we lost big time. You gotta shake that off.
voloffaith writes:
Headline is misleading...looked like Tamika had hung up them shoes and called it quits...
Orangeblood13 writes:
agree
MetroplexMojo writes:
Worked out pretty well for Thomas Hill, didn't it?
johnlg00 writes:
That's what I thought! Glad it ain't so.
martinvol34 writes:
Amen but was this article's title misleading or what? It made me think she had retired or something. SMH.
GreerVol22 writes:
look people, if I knew Pat was going to be courtside, knowing what she is going through, I'd be lucky to remember my shoes...let alone make a stinking jumpshot. Somehow I think "Mik" gets a pass on this one.
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