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The University of Louisvilles opening game was barely two minutes old when Asia Durr spotted up behind the 3-point line and let fly her first shot. With it, the most acclaimed recruit in program history began a sophomore season she hopes will prove kinder than an injury-marred debut.If it does, that sophomore season might not end until the last shot is taken at the Final Four.Durr might have felt better about all of this if she hadnt missed that first attempt against Tennessee-Martin.She told herself not to let the wayward attempt linger. Just because one shot misses, the reminder continued, doesnt mean the next one will. One setback need not presage another.So when the ball again landed in her hands less than a minute later, Durr didnt defer. This time the 3-pointer went in. So did the next one. Over the course of the seasons opening week, so did 15 of the next 30 3-pointers she attempted after that initial miss.And all of that was before she hit 8-of-13 3-pointers en route to a career-best 34 points against Bowling Green this past weekend. Through six games, she averaged 19.7 points per game.Shes doing exactly what we had anticipated shed probably do as a freshman, Louisville coach Jeff Walz said even before the 34-point barrage. But unfortunately, she wasnt healthy.It is not a coincidence that Durrs fresh start coincides with the same for the Cardinals, now 6-0 after they surprisingly and somewhat embarrassingly exited the 2016 NCAA tournament with a second-round loss at home. Louisville had its share of good moments a season ago, hence the No. 3 seed that made the premature end to the postseason so painful. But it was a group too young and too inconsistent to be the next of Walzs Final Four teams. In the final moments of a tournament thriller against DePaul, it wasnt a team with confidence.While far from a failure, it was a season of promise unfulfilled. Durr knew the feeling.She had 15 points off the bench in that season-ending loss against DePaul. Entirely respectable. Not memorable. And Durr can be memorable.The groin injury that kept picking away at her like few defenders ever could is now healed. That much doctors and trainers could assure. But with each shot that slips through the net, its clear that the confidence that can be no less difficult to rehab is also rounding into familiar form.For just about the first time in her life, a basketball court didnt bend to her will.I had lost some of it last year from being hurt, Durr said. Any time any player gets hurt, their confidence goes down a little bit. Which is fine, but you have to build it back up somehow. You have to find a way. I think thats what Im trying to do.Im just trying to find a way to be great and do great things on the court and off the court.Durr underwent surgery for a torn groin muscle the spring of her senior year in high school. By early summer, when she arrived on campus at Louisville as the No. 2 recruit in the nation, there was an expectation she would be full strength by September, well ahead of the regular season. Except Durrs rehab didnt progress at the expected pace. As the season neared, there was even a thought of shutting her down before games commenced. But with an eye toward a basketball future beyond college that she didnt want to delay beyond four years, Walz said she told him she wanted to get all she could out of her natural matriculation. The medical staff said it was a matter of pain tolerance, that she couldnt do any further damage to the groin by playing.My first game against Cal last year [in the season opener], that was my first time playing in months, said Durr, who had 12 ?points in a four-point loss. I dont think people thought about that, which is fine, I dont expect people to think about that. But if you really think about that, thats hard coming from [my perspective].Yet from the perspective of those who had heard about her but never seen her play -- a group that would encompass most basketball fans outside her home state of Georgia and those who follow the prep recruiting circuit -- she was a limited player, not the multi-skilled guard whose game, at least stylistically, has been compared to Maya Moore.She scored a then-career-best 20 points in a win at Michigan State in early December, what seemed a potential turning point. But after a loss at Kentucky just a week later, Walz was again saying aloud that Louisville might shut down Durr for the season. Again she played on. Her numbers improved in ACC play, but while Cals Kristine Anigwe, Connecticuts Katie Lou Samuelson and Nebraskas Jessica Shepard starred as freshmen, Durr kept a low profile.The increasingly societal expectation of instant gratification might be unreasonable, but it is nonetheless often met in college basketball. In just the past few years, highly rated recruits such as Diamond DeShields, Jewell Loyd, Brianna Turner and Aja Wilson left little doubt as freshmen as to what level of performance lay ahead. Which was good for them because we doubt easily.I was just concerned with trying to get healthy, Durr said of the weight of expectations. My mind was on my groin so much. So I really wasnt thinking about what people thought or what people expected from me because I was just so focused on trying to get my groin to feel right. I was playing each game sore or hurt. I played through a whole lot of hurt.The crossover dribbles and spin moves that once freed Durr to get her shot off were harder to pull off. Her lateral movement was diminished. Even when she played well, the extra minutes in those performances then limited her practice time in the days after. Durr said she still experiences soreness. But like telling herself that missing one shot doesnt mean missing the next, she reminds herself that she is healthy.The results tell their own story.She can shoot the 3, she can also penetrate, said teammate Taylor Johnson, a Loyola transfer who has thus far been the teams starting point guard. She can hit the step-back pull-up. She can do a lot of things. Its really hard to stop her. If she shoots a 3, and if you run out at her, shes going to blow by you. She just reads the defense really well.If this is who Durr is, it changes the complexion of what Louisville can be, at least as much as any impact freshman or transfer changes other contenders around the nation. If Durr is a third piece of the puzzle every bit as difficult to defend as Myisha Hines-Allen, the reigning ACC player of the year, and Mariya Moore, an all-conference selection, the Cardinals become one of the teams to beat.Last year I learned a lot about me personally, Durr said.This year the rest of us will learn a great deal about Durr. Jon Casey Stars Jersey .2 billion agreement with Rogers Communications for the leagues broadcast and multimedia rights. Neal Broten Stars Jersey . They hope to persuade the other team owners and commissioner Roger Goodell to put pressure on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to drop the nickname they find offensive. 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SAN FRANCISCO -- The oldest Latino civil rights group in the United States opens every meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, a tradition resulting from a long fight to prove Hispanics belong in this country.In the San Francisco Bay Area, a white father of two says he would never require his young daughters to recite the pledge to show their patriotism.And in North Dakota, Native American protesters whose ancestors were here long before there was a United States waved American flags as they fought a proposed pipeline near sacred tribal land. Some demonstrators flew the flag upside down as a distress symbol.San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernicks refusal to stand during The Star-Spangled Banner in protest against racial oppression and police brutality has brought to light deep and sometimes surprising differences in the way Americans view the flag, the national anthem and the pledge.The symbols, people say, inspire skepticism and heartbreak, pride and joy, sometimes all at once in the same person. Some minorities, in particular, have conflicted feelings about symbols honoring a country that has not always treated all people equally.The flag is important to us because we have so many relatives in the military, said Justin Poor Bear, a 38-year-old member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Allen, South Dakota. There is also a lot of pain.Following Kaepernicks example, pro athletes and high school students across the country are taking a knee or linking arms during the national anthem before sporting events.The protests have raised questions of who gets to be called a patriot.Jason Pontius, a 46-year-old white resident of Alameda, California, said the U.S. of all countries should realize that blind devotion is not the American way. Sometimes when he drops off his second-grader at school, he sticks around while she recites the Pledge of Allegiance with her class. But he doesnt join in.What makes America great, he said, is that people have always challenged the idea of what America stands for.Yet there are organizations that embrace the flag precisely as a way to declare that their members, too, are Americans.The League of United Latin American Citizens -- the nations oldest Latino civil rights group, founded in Texas by World War I veterans -- has historically opened all its meetings with the pledge and a prayer similar to one George Washington is said to have recited.Dennis W. Montoya, the leagues state director in New Mexico, said the groups emphasis on American pride is connected with a long fight by Latinos to prove they belong in this country.If someone doesnt stand for the pledge at one of our meetings, that person will probably be kicked out, Montoya said. Its disrespecting LULACs rituals and traditions.African-Americans have been moveed to create symbols that better reflect their history.dddddddddddd.The national anthem, for example, was written by a slave owner and contains a painful reference to slavery in its little-known third stanza. The NAACP dubbed Lift Evry Voice and Sing the black national anthem in 1919.The hymn is a staple of African American singers and is so important that the clergy member who gave the benediction at President Barack Obamas 2009 inauguration opened with lines from the song.After Kaepernick started his protest in August, C.C. Washington of Waco, Texas, read all the stanzas of The Star-Spangled Banner, including the one that refers derisively to slaves who fought for the British in exchange for their freedom.The 65-year-old African-American retiree -- fresh off visiting the Statue of Liberty last week -- felt betrayed.All this time, Ive been posting on Facebook: Respect our flag, respect our national anthem. Now its totally different, she said, choking up. Ill stand out of respect for the people standing next to me, not because I believe it.Poor Bear said he started looking at the anthem differently after he took a group of Oglala Lakota students to a minor-league hockey game last year. A man yelled slurs and sprayed the children with beer, incensed that one of them did not stand for the national anthem, Poor Bear said. The student had been putting batteries into a camera.So I still stand for the national anthem, Poor Bear said. But I no longer put my hand over my heart.Linda Tamura, a retired professor of education in Portland, Oregon, has no personal objections to the anthem or the flag, even though her family was among tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans put in internment camps by the U.S. government during World War II.Her father volunteered for the military, along with her uncle and other Japanese-American men who felt it was their duty. When she looks at the Stars and Stripes, she says, she feels pride, instilled in part by her parents, who more than anything wanted us to believe in our country.At the same time, she salutes the growing protest movement and hopes it triggers broader discussions about how to improve relations.Thats why my father was in the military. Thats why were part of America. Thats why we believe in America, she said. Because we have the right to say what we believe.---Contreras reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. AP staff writer Deepti Hajela and stringer Rachelle Blidner contributed to this story from New York. Staff writers Errin Haines Whack contributed from Philadelphia; Jesse J. Holland and Noreen Nasir from Washington.---Follow Janie Har on Twitter at www.twitter.com/byjaniehar ' ' '