A
basketball player, previously for the
Univeristy of Connecticut and currently for the
WNBA's Orlando Miracle. Sales is
UConn's career scoring leader, and her record-breaking
feat caused a national
controversy in
1998.
At six feet tall, Sales is tall enough to be a
forward, but she's also quick enough to play at
guard. Sales is also an
accurate three-point shooter, and all these skills blend together to make her a dependable scorer. In college she averaged 15.5 points per game, and in the WNBA she's averaged 13.6 points per game in all games as of this writeup (
June 4, 2002). Sales been an
All-Star in her first three WNBA seasons, and she was an
All-American in her last two years at UConn.
What makes her WNBA career particularly impressive is that she spent all of 1998 rehabilitating a torn
anterior cruciate ligament from the early spring. It's an awful
injury, and not everyone can recapture their pre-injury level of play.
The
ACL injury was sustained during her
UConn senior season in a game against the
University of Notre Dame. Cruelly, the ligament ruptured when she was just one point away from UConn's career scoring record, which was held by
Kerry Bascom-Poliquim.
But ... her UConn career wasn't over yet.
Nykesha Sales was well-liked. That's how the whole thing got started.
Geno Auriemma, the UConn
coach, felt terrible that such a nice person would not only miss the remaining games of her
senior year, but that she would be just one point away from the record. But
Villanova University was the last team on the schedule, and Auriemma was good friends with their coach,
Harry Perretta.
It was a simple deal. Sales was announced as one of UConn's starters, even though she could barely hobble around without assistance. The Villanova players didn't attempt to control the
opening tip, and UConn passed the ball to Sales underneath the basket, who made the easy shot to break the record. Then Auriemma called a 20-second
timeout, took Sales out of the game — to a
standing ovation from the Villanova fans — and allowed Villanova to score an unconstested layup. That evened the game at 2-2, and with about 20 seconds of the first half used up, the game was on
for real.
After the game, the media's opinion on this was not mostly
negative. The
Hartford Courant, UConn's home paper, was very critical. A radio host called Auriemma a "pig," which was rather uncalled for. (Auriemma later took the
low road as he called an ESPN anchor "stupid" and an "idiot" and questioned the manhood of sports-radio callers.)
This brought to mind other famous sports stunts:
Anyway, as a controversy, the Nykesha Sales incident had
legs. Villanova and UConn are both
Big East teams, and Big East commissioner
Mike Tranghese rationalized it to the
New York Daily News by saying, "It's a women's sport; this was a female player. I am a man. I am not going to pretend to handle decisions on (men and women) exactly the same way." That comment tended to piss everyone off.
Then,
ESPN the Magazine reported that in an earlier game at
Seton Hall, the Seton Hall scorekeeper accidentally credited Sales with two points that ought to have gone to another player. (Video replays confirmed that the ESPN report was true.) However, scorekeepers' decisions are the responsibility of the
home team, and Seton Hall wasn't touching this one. They let the incorrect box score stand; their
rationale was that these sort of mistakes happen all the time.
<rant>
Seton Hall is right. Scorekeepers are often students looking for
beer money. To
paraphrase the movie
Election, it's not like they're electing the
Pope. I wouldn't be surprised if Bascom-Poliquim's "true" point total was +/- 20 points from what she "officially" has. So who cares?
</rant>
Sources/more info:
Frank Deford: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/1998/deford/0304/
NY Times: http://www.s-t.com/daily/02-98/02-27-98/b09sp100.htm
AP: http://archive.sportserver.com/newsroom/ap/bkb/1998/col/bkw/feat/archive/031098/bkw28694.html
AP: http://archive.sportserver.com/newsroom/ap/bkb/1998/col/bkw/feat/archive/022698/bkw52199.html
UConn Stats:
Year G FG FGA 3FG 3FGA FT FTA REB A TO PTS AVG
1994-95 35 159 294 35 81 45 77 162 73 61 398 11.4
1995-96 38 237 459 30 89 92 131 168 101 92 596 15.7
1996-97 34 215 430 29 81 97 128 192 111 102 556 16.4
1997-98 30 241 426 40 105 106 135 166 86 95 628 20.9
TOTALS 137 852 1609 134 356 340 471 688 371 350 2178 15.9
WNBA:
YEAR TEAM G GS MIN FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OFF DEF TOT AST STL TO PF PTS
1999 ORL 32 32 1,039 153-397 36-109 95-118 44 91 135 91 69 69 97 437
2000 ORL 32 32 995 170-383 47-119 43-62 43 96 139 69 47 67 92 430
2001 ORL 32 31 1,039 166-379 43-137 58-74 57 115 172 58 70 72 109 433
2002 ORL 2 2 65 12-31 1-10 12-14 3 4 7 4 5 8 9 37
Career 98 97 3,138 501-1,190 127-375 208-268 147 306 453 222 191 216 307 1,337