What you can do with 2nd best

Last night, the San Antonio Spurs won the NBA finals for the fourth time since 1999.

The Spurs have been coached to all four titles by Gregg Popovich, who, through coincidence, was the basketball coach while I was at Pomona College.

The funny thing is, while I was at Pomona Popovich was only the second best basketball coach. It was Nancy Breitenstein, the women's coach, who did far better. In 23 seasons, she had a win-loss record of 336-143, for a .701 percentage. The team won the SCIAC conference I don't know how many times, and my memory is of a 60-mumble (or three seasons or so) undefeated streak in conference. The team made the Division III Final Four at least once.

I now see on Google that there are hardly any hits at all on Breitenstein's name. Fortunately, one of the few is Nancy Breitenstein in the NCAA coaching records. (note: Acrobat file) To their shame, there are none whatsoever at Pomona's web site.

Here are the players I remember during those years. All of them were electrifying to watch:

Jill Apperson
Melissa Barlow
Libby Gates
Nora Seager
Shontel Sherwood
Cindy Wyels

Libby's older brother is a bit better known to the world. She herself promotes high school and college athletics, but, typical of the low profile of her family. never mentions that she played in the Final Four of her division. I think she averaged over 20 points a game, which would have been great except Shontel averaged even more.

So, congratulations to San Antonio.

But you have to wonder how well they'd be doing if they played for Pomona's best basketball coach.