Finding something to believe in

UConn's Wisconsin freshman Allie Ziebell does the trick

It’s New Year’s night, Day One of the next 365 and just 19 days and few hours before The End-Of-Things-As-We-Know-Them and I’m lying in bed, flipping the channels on the TV. I’m looking for something positive, uplifting, a way to kick off the year, you know? Sure can’t watch the news. Just awful. Poor New Orleans. What are we in for?

I’ve been on Bourbon Street a few times. Even got some beads tossed down to me from a balcony (not talking about that, though.) The first college football playoff game was fabulous thanks to the heroics of one Cam Skattebo, which sounds like a made-up name but isn’t. He’s a one-man show out there but when Arizona State’s secondary gives up a friggin’ TD on fourth-and 13 in OT, well, there goes that game.

And Game Two, where undefeated Oregon is getting soundly thrashed after going all season long, all the way from September without a loss, to lose NOW, hey, that just sucks, too.

So, I keep flipping and on some channel out of New York, I get the replay of the UConn women’s basketball game vs. Marquette. There are NBA games on but I’m tired of dunks and three’s so not interested. If you love basketball and you’re a purist, you’ve got to love the way Geno Auriemma’s teams play. They are relentless because he is, they pass the ball, they share the glory (and the flack they get) and they almost always are always fun to watch.

UConn's Allie Ziebell from Neenah, Wisconsin is thinking big and so am I.

I remember once sitting behind the UConn bench a few years ago at the Tucker Center, listening to Geno for a whole game. You know, as a writer, trying to increase my vocabulary, learning new words, that’s a good thing, right?

So I’m watching the Marquette game — I knew the final score already since it happened earlier in the day, an easy UConn win — and I see a player check in, one I didn’t recognize.

A little graphic comes up on the screen: “Allie Ziebell. Gatorade Player of the Year for Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin? A basketball player from Wisconsin? At UConn? What do I know about Wisconsin? Cheese. Green Bay. Paul Bunyan. Babe, the Blue Ox. But basketball?

And Geno, that sentimental old fluff, he knows Allie is from Wisconsin, she’ll probably have a bunch of folks here. So she gets some time. Where is she from? I look it up. Neenah. Neenah? Geno finds a basketball player in Neenah? I gotta watch this kid.

I went to Wisconsin once, to a wedding and they had the most amazing meal and incredible dessert tray as well as the friendliest people you could imagine. If I ever lived there, I’d be 300 pounds, 300 people would come to my funeral and I would have gone with a smile and a burp.

So, I’m watching Allie. She plays some in the first half. Nothing of note. UConn’s ahead by about 20 at the half. My favorite player on UConn and probably yours is Paige Bueckers but she’s in foul trouble, her first shot of the second half is a three-pointer that doesn’t reach the backboard. Clearly, it’s an off-night.

But now I’m focused on Allie. She’s listed at 6-foot, has long dark hair pulled back in one of those ferocious ponytails that so many hoopsters favor. She has expressive blue eyes from what I can see and when she first came in, she looked stressed. Geno, I thought.

She checks back in with about three and a half minutes to go, UConn up 67-43. And I notice she has a Wisconsin tan, the whitest kid on the floor. (I can relate). She puts up a 3 right in front of the Connecticut bench — Geno standing right behind her, arms folded across his chest and the ball rims out. “Oh, that was cruel,” the announcer says. I agree.

So then I start thinking, as I’m watching. Yeah, I know Allie was big at Neenah High, I looked it up, she set a record with 2,819 points, a school record, averaged 27.5 points a game as a senior but still. It’s Neenah. In Wisconsin.

Then I see that she was actually the first commit from her class to UConn and you know, that’s impressive. It’s one thing to kick butt at Neenah, a Wisconsin city of 27,000 or so, halfway between Oshkosh and Green Bay, right on the water across from Michigan, but this is UCONN. And you’re coming in as a freshman, likely with a lot of time sitting four players down from Assistant Coach Chris Dailey and Geno’s only occasionally used spot on the bench.

So, Allie, evidently, BELIEVES in herself and her talent and instead of signing with a Marquette, a 3.5 hour drive from Neenah, she picks Storrs, 17.5 hours and half a continent away. To play for the toughest (and best, if you ask me) coach in the land. I like this. I really like this. Spirits picking up as the night moves on.

She gets another three off, again, right in front of the UConn bench. Geno is standing by the scorer’s table. Rims out. Tight rim.

The camera switches to a whole row of bundled up folks in the stands. Probably half the town of Neenah. They all have smiles on their faces though, even if she’s O-for-2 from the field so far.

I’m rooting for her now. I like the idea of a Wisconsin kid saying, “Yeah, I’m going to go to UConn and I’m going to play for Geno.” UConn’s lead is up to 72-43 now, then with 55 seconds to go, Allie drives into the lane left-handed, mind you, and flips one in off the glass!

“Yes!” I say, waking the missus, fortunately only for a moment. Then with just 30 seconds to go, she gets a feed just the left of the foul circle — my favorite place to shoot back in the day — and she DRAINS A THREE!

Beautiful shot, drops precisely in the middle of the hoop, you can tell the way the net reacts. “This kid can SHOOT” it says.

I try not to say anything this time. The camera switches back to the crowd and Neenah Nation is on their feet, clapping and smiling and having a helluva time. They waited almost the entire dadgum 30-point blowout game for that. And Allie didn’t let them down.

So, 2025, I’m good now. I’ve got Allie. So does Geno. And now, I got somebody to believe in, too.