By Jim Fuller Register Staff STORRS -- About 45 minutes before University of Connecticut senior guard Mel Thomas received a thunderous ovation as she was presented a commemorative ball for becoming the 29th UConn player to score 1,000 points, the sweet-shooting Thomas received a different reception from a host of Connecticut media members in the Gampel Pavilion training room.
The ink was still in the process of drying on their respective national letters of intent but their pulses were racing and blood pressure rising as Charde Houston, Ketia Swanier and Mel Thomas pondered the glorious opportunities that awaited them in the very near future. The UConn women's basketball team was in the early stages of another remarkable basketball odyssey in the fall of 2003.
The impetuous nature of the UConn women's basketball team didn't take long to reveal itself in Sunday night's loss in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. Since the season-ending injuries to Kalana Greene and Mel Thomas, the Huskies hitched their championship dreams to the offensively gifted trio of Maya Moore, Renee Montgomery and Tina Charles. Yet, only two of the first nine shots came from UConn's three All- Americans in an 82-73 loss to Stanford.
Not even a month had passed since Renee Montgomery saw her University of Connecticut women's basketball teammate and roommate Kalana Greene laying on the Gampel Pavilion court, the latest player to fall prey to the curse of the anterior cruciate ligament injury. As the junior guard for the top-ranked Huskies looked over at Mel Thomas late in a mid-January game at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., Montgomery could not believe her eyes.
Mel Thomas has tried not to peer into her crystal ball and visualize the atmosphere as she hobbles out to mid-court shortly after 4 p.m. today. Thomas has come to terms with the premature end of her career on the University of Connecticut's women's basketball team courtesy of a torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus suffered in a Jan. 15 win at Syracuse. But the prospects of dealing with the finality of her college playing days, that is an entirely different story.
In a perfect world, Renee Montgomery would rather deliver a pass to a slashing Kalana Greene or find Mel Thomas for an open 3- pointer. But Montgomery's vision of basketball utopia ended when Greene and Thomas tore anterior cruciate ligaments in their right knees less than a month apart. The days of a balanced UConn offensive philosophy -- five UConn players sharing the scoring load -- ended when the Huskies lost two of their most reliable offensive options.
The final blow had been struck, the chorus of boos directed at Rutgers sophomore guard Epiphanny Prince had mercifully subsided, and all that was left was the enduring image of injured University of Connecticut starters Kalana Greene and Mel Thomas holding up the Big East regular-season championship trophy as more than 15,000 at the XL Center roared their approval Monday night. It was a touching gesture in what has been a emotional ride to the top of the Big East mountain for the Huskies.
Time did little to ease Mel Thomas' consternation. The University of Connecticut senior guard and three-time Big East Academic All-Star, Thomas thought she had the perfect semester.
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