By Mel Greenberg
GREENSBORO, N.C. _ The Atlantic Coast Conference women's basketball media day had already had a full share of notes and quotes on Tuesday here following the morning session with six of the conference's coaches speaking at the lavish Grandover Resort and the other six wrapping up interview activity in the late afternoon.
It was then North Carolina State coach Kay Yow's turn to give her assessment of the Wolfpack fortunes or lack thereof for the season.
The Hall of Famer lamented her youthful roster needing more of learning curve with only two starters returning, although she joked that at least having experience with a guard and a post player "gives us something to build around."
Then Charlene Curtis, the former Temple and Wake Forest coach who now does media and TV work, asked Yow to reflect on last season's magical run to the Sweet 16 that occurred after Yow returned from taking two months off as she continued to battle breast cancer.
"I don't think I'll experience another year as gratifying," Yow said acknowledging her teary-eyed emotions during her response. "No matter what, I don't think a national championship would beat that year."
The Wolfpack (25-10) upset then-unbeaten Duke in the conference tournament and then finished off a 12-3 run losing to Connecticut in the regional semifinals.
Yow, a veteran of 33 seasons, revealed at Tuesday's session that she had returned to taking chemotherapy after taking five months off.
"My body just couldn't take it," Yow said. She added that on Wednesday a week ago she began taking a new drug, Doxil that might limit the side effects.
"That is hopefully going to work as well and get the (cancer cell) count down where it needs to be," Yow said. "It hasn't at this time zapped my energy, so that's the really good part of it. I don't know if my body is getting used to it and handling it better -- I'm not sure."
North Carolina State, incidentally, will visit Temple on Dec. 1 at the Liacouras Center.
In other comments, Virginia's Debbie Ryan talked about the need of her Cavaliers to return to the NCAA tournament after being absent for several years and she's hopeful of shoring up her team's defense that caused a bunch of closely-fought contests to land on the losing side of the ledger.
Georgia Tech's MaChelle Joseph, a former Purdue star, noted her team's goal of landing in the top four of the conference standings that have been dominated in recent seasons by Maryland, Duke and North Carolina.
Willingboro High's Crystal Langhorne, a senior at Maryland, was the Terrapins' player representative, although coach Brenda Frese appeared via speaker phone while remaining in College Park, Md., because of back problems not related to her pregnancy.
Frese is expecting twins a month before the postseason begins.
Langhorne arrived at about the time our blackberry was chiming with email news of the Los Angeles Sparks winning the WNBA's No.1 pick in the draft lottery. The rest of the top of the pecking order was also established.
Langhorne is considered a top draft prospect and when it was mentioned that she could land on one of those teams, she smiled and responded, "I'm already getting nervous. But I have enough to keep me busy at Maryland until then."
Incidentally, Maryland's first promotional trinket on behalf of Langhorne's all-American candidacy is a simulated piece of crystal. If Maryland says it's the real deal, we'll have it assessed here.
Drawing much attention was Duke, where Joanne P. McCallie has moved from Michigan State to take over the Blue Devils following Gail Goestenkors' departure for Texas to replace the retired Jody Conradt.
"What I'm most pleased about was it didn't take much to change how we're going to approach practice," McCallie said. "Mostly because we don't know each other that well. We've had some incredible long practices where we've stayed focused and that's a very, very good sign."
We had dinner at our favorite Raleigh steakhouse later Tuesday night with Duke team spokesman Lindy Brown, who mentioned that McCallie has been running all over the place getting acquainted with the denizens of the triangle area since her hire last spring.
"It's difficult keeping up to meet with her to discuss the week's schedule," Brown smiled.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the ACC announced the preseason vote of the media -- no, we did not participate.
Maryland, with four starters returning, got 27 of 37 first-place votes to lock up the No. 1 spot ahead of North Carolina, which collected the other 10 first-place ballots. Duke, Florida State, and Georgia Tech rounded out the first five, followed by Virginia, North Carolina State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Miami, Boston College, and Wake Forest.
Langhorne was named the preseason player of the year and was joined on the all-conference team by Terrapin teammate Marissa Coleman, North Carolina's Erlana Larkins, Duke's Abby Waner, and North Carolina State's Khadijah Whittington.
-- Mel
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