Injuries to key players can cripple a team's championship dreams faster than a Tonya Harding blow to the knee.
After a year wrought with injuries, the ACC coaches now know what Nancy Kerrigan was feeling eight years ago when she was seeking an Olympic gold medal.
But it is not only injuries that have caused some teams to readjust their preseason goals. North Carolina and Virginia both had bizarre absences of key players, but the two teams responded by heading in opposite directions.
Nikki Teasley, UNC's highly regarded point guard and playmaker, left the team for seven games in January. The Tar Heels posted a sub-par 1-6 record during her hiatus, but have since rebounded, winning six of eight since their star returned to the court. The Tar Heels now stand 16-11 and seem poised for an at-large tourney bid.
The North Carolina athletic department has yet to give an official reason for Teasley's disappearance for those contests.
In Charlottesville, All-ACC performer and point guard Erin Stovall left the team for personal reasons. She then had a change of heart and asked to be let back on the team. Coach Debbie Ryan denied Stovall's request, but opened up the door for a possible return next season.
In Stovall's absence, all the Cavaliers have done is capture the league crown for the regular season.
Duke, N.C. State and Georgia Tech haven't fared so well injury-wise. When Duke's Peppi Browne clutched her knee after crumpling to the Cameron floor with an ACL tear during Duke's rout of UNC, she likely took the Blue Devils' dreams of a return trip to the Final Four with her.
Browne's importance to the Duke squad was not so much in her point production (second on the team) or rebounds (first), or even on the defensive end where she routinely shut down some of the greatest post players in the country. More importantly, it was her ability to rally her team emotionally that the Blue Devils will sorely miss.
Down I-40 just a few weeks later, the Wolfpack would befall a similar fate. They would win the game, but lose a superstar due to injury. And on a fast break layup attempt, no less.
Summer Erb, last season's ACC Player of the Year, broke three bones in her foot as she was fouled hard by North Carolina's LaShonda Allen. A barometer for how far the Wolfpack can expect to go in the NCAA tourney is that they are 3-3 in games without their premier post player, losing the last three games of the regular season.
While injuries to star players at Duke and N.C. State have been unfortunate, they have demoralized Georgia Tech. Just two minutes and 42 seconds into the Yellow Jackets' conference opener, preseason All-ACC first-teamer Niesha Butler went down with a devastating knee injury.
While the Blue Devils and the Wolfpack still have a roster full of top-level performers and can look to other source to provide offensive production and key defensive stops, no player means more to her team than Butler. It's like having the Little Rascals without Buckwheat-it just doesn't work.
Butler was the conference freshman of the year last season and finished as the second-leading scorer overall at 19.3 points per contest. Butler's scoring average ranked second among national freshmen and she was selected to the freshman All-American team.
Last season, she had problems with turnovers (155 compared to 120 assists), but Butler was an explosive player who was virtually impossible to guard in one-on-one situations. She made a respectable 36 percent of her three-point attempts and was equally solid at the charity stripe, where she shot at a 70.7 clip.
Butler started all 27 contests for the Yellow Jackets as a true freshman and accounted for more than 25 percent of the Georgia Tech offense. She was such a phenomenal player that she was invited to appear in the Spike Lee basketball film Love and Basketball, but could not accept the role due to NCAA regulations.
When the ACC and NCAA tournaments start up in just a few days, several stars will be in the latest Donna Karan fashions, instead of their traditional basketball uniform.
And it will make all the difference in the world.
Bob Wells is a Trinity senior.
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