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Gym rat Diana Taurasi feels guilty.
It's easy to understand why. After almost a solid year of basketball that included a third straight NCAA championship, an Olympic gold medal and now WNBA Rookie of the Year honors, she plans to take three days off.
"I spend one or two days out of the gym, and I feel like I haven't done anything," the Mercury guard said Monday. "It's more of a mental break than anything."
Besides finding time to spend with her family, she plans to return to the University of Connecticut to finish her degree in sociology.
Taurasi, the league's fourth-leading scorer and one of its preeminent all-around players, came into the league with high expectations, and she helped Phoenix win 17 games and raise the bar for the future. She secured 42 of 48 votes from a national panel in Rookie of the Year balloting. Alana Beard of Washington, the No. 2 draft pick behind Taurasi, received four votes, and Minnesota's Nicole Ohlde had two.
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"She did it all this year with the poise of a veteran and class," Ackerman said. "It's hard to imagine a player who loves the game more. I can't wait to see what she does for an encore next year."
Taurasi anticipated the challenges she would face in trying to help a team that had finished with only eight victories in 2003 get back on track.
"This year, it was more of an attitude and belief that we could win games," she said. "You have to believe you can win before you go out there and win. At the end of the season, even though we lost games, in the long run it will help us out."
Mercury coach Carrie Graf said Taurasi was a rookie in name only.
"I think she stopped being one after our first practice," she said. "The way she played, in my mind, she was never a rookie . . . She's got a maturity about her game. With the Olympic team, she fit in like she played for five years. That's a sign of how good she is."
COPYRIGHT 2004, AZCENTRAL.COM. Used with permission.
