Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

On Monday night, Tennessee's superstar Candace Parker tried to put a philosophical spin on the controversial finish in her top-ranked team's 59-58 win over No. 5 Rutgers that was aided by a "frozen" clock of 1.3 seconds.

That was enough "extra" time to allow a foul to be called on the Scarlet Knights' Kia Vaughn, sending Tennessee' Nicky Anosike to the line where she hit the winning free throws with 0.2 seconds left.

Parker, who scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, besides blocking five shots, was asked about the frantic finish afterwards in the postgame press conference in Knoxville.

"We're not going to make the best plays all the time," she said. "We're going to turn the ball over, and the referees aren't going to make the right call all the time. That's the game of basketball. We won and came out with the victory with a 'W' on our side."

Apparently it's not the first time in Parker's storied career that one of her teams dodged an upset with a call in their favor at the finish.

Our colleague Steve Tucker of the Chicago Sun Times checked in Wednesday night with notification about a call at the end of a high school game that allowed Parker's Naperville squad to prevail in overtime.

"It was wild," he said. "There were lawsuit threats and everything.

"But the bottom line was Naperville won and went on to capture the state championship, when the reality is they should have been eliminated in the sectional," Tucker explained.

Writing in his blog for the Sun Times, Tucker recalled that controversy.

"Candace Parker was not a part of the controversy at Tennessee on Monday night," he wrote.

"She also wasn't a part of the controversy from Naperville Central's sectional "victory" against Neuqua Valley five years ago. But she did benefit from both wrong calls," Tucker continued.

"In a 2003 sectional, an apparent game-winning basket by Neuqua that replays show clearly beat the buzzer was not allowed and Naperville Central went on to win the game in overtime and the first of their two Class AA state titles

"On Monday, the clock at Tennessee mysteriously stopped and a foul was called that allowed Tennessee to make two free throws with 0.2 seconds on the clock and beat Rutgers by a point.

"It wasn't a bad call, it was a wrong call."

A little google action turned up the first few paragraphs of coverage of that game by the Daily Herald sportswriter Dave Miller.

Sometimes even the No. 1-ranked team in the state needs to be good and lucky.

Top-ranked Naperville Central watched Neuqua Valley's game- winning shot waved off by a referee at the end of regulation, then took advantage of its second chance.

Big East Gets Official on Officials.

In our previous post of the fallout from the game, we noted certain information that apparently had been obtain from the Big East Conference, though the organization itself had not indicated it would make any public proclamation, other than its previous disassociation from the Southeastern Conference statement that everyone acted properly.

On Wednesday, the Big East decided to make a public statement on its findings.

“It is truly a shame that such a great game ended the way it did," Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese said in a statement. "I have personally spoken with SEC Commissioner Mike Slive on two separate occasions. In addition, Barbara Jacobs, our women’s basketball coordinator of officials, has spoken with her counterpart at the SEC.

"The game officials, who were assigned by the SEC, never asked the timer about the stoppage of the clock and did not follow procedures as defined by the NCAA Mechanic Manual," Tranghese said of Bob Trammell, Tina Napier, and Bonita Spence, who also work Big East games.

"As a result, they rendered their judgment that the foul occurred with .02 seconds remaining in the game. The SEC was asked to speak with the timer, who said that he did not stop the clock and the clock was controlled by the officials."

The Guru spoke briefly Wednesday with LSU's Judy Southard, who chairs the NCAA women's basketball tournament committee, about how the group would handle the result in its deliberations next month.

She concurred with the response we reported from Sue Donohoe, the NCAA vice president of Division I women's basketball, in the previous post.

Southard's own team is heading into the wake of the Rutgers debacle Thursday night when new coach Van Chancellor will be guiding the Tigers against the Vols in a battle of Southeastern Conference unbeatens.

Adjusting the Voepel

Mechelle Voepel, another one of our colleagues, has some entertaining references to your Guru in her most recent take on Monday night's events in Knoxville.

Although she noted that the Guru has been around for Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer's disappointments involving a number of contests that had controversy attached to them, the Guru also has been around for a number of her highs, though not as many when she was out at Iowa.

In fact, and we may have mentioned the occasion long ago in a post on this or the former blog, both Stringer and myself were not thrilled to land in Oregon for the West regional in 2000 when Philadelphia was host for the Women's Final Four.

Travel was the main complaint for both of us for different reasons when Rutgers was the No. 2 seed to a powerful Georgia team.

In fact, Stringer was mildly surprised to see the Guru appear at the opening press conference, thinking he would be sent elsewhere or stay home to help prepare the sports section for its Final Four coverage.

In response, the Guru told her, "You know I've been around for most of your big moments. Now you're not happy you're here and I'm not happy I'm here, BUT if we're both here together there must be a reason.

Several nights later when Rutgers upset Georgia to make Stringer the first men's or women's coach to take three different teams to a Final Four, we just smiled at each other before the press conference began.

As to Voepel's comment about the vending machine, that could only happen in our headquarters where the Guru's dollar bills and quarters are challenged nightly by the equipment in place, let alone what is actually worth the purchase.

In Other Basketball Matters

A key Atlantic Coast Conference game will be played Friday night when North Carolina travels to Virginia.

For you locals in Philadelphia who feel abandoned in the middle of the cotroversy, we note that Holy Family, located in the Northeast not far from the Guru's home, continues to be unbeaten (20-0)in Division II and ranked seventh, nationally, and first in the NCAA.Northeast Region.

Coach Mike McLaughlin's team is also 13-0 in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

Meanwhile Drexel will be going for a sweep of Delaware in a Colonial Athletic Association game when the two meet Thursday night here in the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

On Saturday, in the A-10, St. Joseph's will be at Richmond, Fordham will be here at La Salle, and Cincinnati will be at Villanova.

On Sunday, James Madison will visit Drexel, while at 2 p.m. Duquesne and new coach Suzie McConnell make their second trip in a week to the city, this time to play Temple, which has been idle since the Xavier loss.

-- Mel