Suppose a Duke basketball player managed a significant career achievement on the road, say, at North Carolina or at Maryland. Could you imagine the game being stopped at the point that it happened to honor the player? Or, to be fair, change the teams and the places and try to envision a similar result.

You can't, and that's more an indictment of the coarseness of the sports society, or society, in general, than of the goings-on at Durham, Chapel Hill or College Park. Every once in a while, however, something surprising and very nice happens at a sporting event and you're reminded how good athletics can be when those who participate remember that these are just games of humanity, not wars fought by automatons.

With 2:23 left in the second quarter during last night's girls basketball game between top-ranked Seton Keough and No.2 St. Frances, a timeout was called. The public address announcer at St. Frances, the home team, announced to the crowd that Seton Keough center Asya Bussie had just scored the 1,000th point of her career, and the throng -- made up mostly of Panther fans -- rose and gave the junior a standing ovation. It was a remarkably touching and satisfying moment, and the St. Frances administration and fans, who were, at the time, watching their team slip behind by double digits, are to be commended for making a special moment even more special.

As for Bussie, she told The Sun's Katherine Dunn that she nearly psyched herself out of the moment.

“I just got into the game the second quarter,' said Bussie, who finished the Gators' 62-40 romp with 15 points and 12 rebounds. "I really disappointed myself in first quarter. It was like I’ve got to pick this up. I think I was like it was too much pressure about this 1,000-point thing, but I had to just to think about getting the win.”