Andy Kaufman was a performance artist at the turn of the ’80s. Whether you thought Kaufman comedian or anti-comedian, brilliant or ‘what the fuck’, was up to you.
The producers of the classic sitcom “Taxi” so enjoyed Kaufman’s “foreign man” persona, they offered him a role based on the character.
Kaufman never liked the idea, and as he grew bored with “Taxi”, the showrunners let him play a range of weirdos by giving the foreign man a personality disorder. They also cast Carol Kane as a love interest from the foreign man’s fictional home country.
Since an on-screen courtship is nothing without conflict, they wrote the foreign man as bigoted toward “mountain people” in his homeland, while Carol Kane’s character was from the highlands.
This bit of 1980s sitcom culture always comes to my mind when Utah and Colorado play weaker opponents on the same day. I imagine munchkins or oompa loompas standing up to the Rocky Mountain people, then ultimately fleeing in terror like Tokyo residents in science fiction movies.
Northern Colorado 56
Colorado 78
Northern Colorado didn’t get my memo. The Bears scored the first 14 points of the game, 11 by senior Delanie Byrne. UNC’s leading scorer and rebounder averages 17 and 8; she had 21 and 9 in Boulder Thursday.
The host Buffaloes trailed 14-0 early, 21-15 at the end of one, and didn’t get the lead until 0:44 of the second.
When you ask coaches if they’ve devised anything out of the ordinary for some opponent, they invariably say something like: We’ll do what we do, and if circumstances warrant, we might something different. Even if the team truly does have a card up their sleeve, coaches will give that LaLooshian answer.
Colorado seemed to take the rare step of doing the unusual early. They had a plan of overwhelming Northern Colorado with size, but Aaronette Vonleh and Quay Miller shot 0-for-4. Frida Formann didn’t attempt a field goal until 5:33 for the Buffaloes’ first points. Then guard Tameiya Sadler made a couple of assists and a steal, Vonleh made a layup assisted by Jaylyn Sherrod, and the Buffaloes were back to doing what they do.
Colorado scored 48 points in the paint, which was what they had in mind all along, but they got there through conventional means. The early focus on forward play had an odd-though-perhaps-expected effect on the perimeter: Sherrod didn’t get going until the 2nd quarter, though she wound up with the team scoring lead. Formann, who’d scored 68 in their previous three games, ended with 10.
Formann is the most confident-looking 3-point shooter I know. She’s just 15th in the nation in 3FG% (Alissa Pili is first; imagine that), but she’s first in attempts.
Back in 1989, when Eddie Johnson won the NBA sixth man of the year award, he scored 21 ppg, and made more than half his 3-pointers. Eddie Johnson’s first attempt appeared to be critical — if it was good, he was off to an amazing shooting night; if he missed the first one, not so good. A TV person said shooters like Eddie Johnson have a trait that when they make the first one, they approach the second one with great confidence because they know they’re still at 50 percent on a miss.
I don’t see that in Frida Formann. When Formann takes her first 3-point attempt, she looks like she’s already taken one and made it.
If I needed a 3-pointer with everything on the line, I think I’d want Formann shooting it. Or Hannah Jump from beyond the center of the circle. If Alissa Pili were to change my mind, it wouldn’t be the first time for her doing that.
When two giant monsters are in the same Japanese science fiction movie, they fight each other. That’s what we get on Dec. 30 when the Buffaloes and Utes collide to begin conference play. About bloody time.
Weber St. 36
Utah 89
I predicted one of the forwards other than Pili — Dasia Young or Jenna Johnson — would have an outstanding game, based on Oregon St.’s forwards trampling the Weber St. forwards earlier.
Johnson had a double with zero fouls and zero turnovers. If she’d made her last trey, she would’ve led the team in effiency. Young’s 10 points included the 489th point she’s scored as a Ute, to go with 511 at Tennessee-Martin.
Vieira defies physics. When the ballhandler and Ines Vieira approach from opposite directions, and Vieira misses a steal attempt going left, she can turn right and come back around to try for the steal from behind — one, that’s amazing speed, and two, the right turn shouldn’t be possible without drifting away and to the left.
I have to ask Roberts to assess freshman Ross’ feel for the game, particularly on defense. She seems to grasp the ball-you-man principle so well that she fills defensive floor space as though playing zone.
A little barometer of how well a player is shooting is adding 2FG%, 3FG%, and FT%, and 1800 is exceptional. 60% 2FG, 40% 3FG, and 80% FT makes an 1800. For most of last season, Gonzaga’s Brynna Maxwell was in an otherworldly 1950 range. This season, on the other hand:
Pili, Utah 2059
Brink, Stanford 1941
Hare, Marquette 1860
Maxwell, Gonzaga 1787