By Erin Semagin Damio
TAMPA, Fla. _ So, the past few days have been pretty busy. I'm trying to finish a lot of schoolwork and spent most of yesterday at basketball events or traveling to basketball events.
Yesterday morning, we saw the announcement of the WBCA All-American team and the Wade trophy go to Candice Wiggins of Stanford (as posted previously). Wiggins is certainly a worthy winner -- she has scored two 40+ point games during the NCAA tournament so far -- but most of the audience was probably expecting the award to go to Candace Parker of Tennessee, last year's winner. Parker is likely to be the first pick in the WNBA draft, going to the Los Angeles Sparks, and has led Tennessee to a 34-2 record this year. I didn't vote, obviously, so I don't know what the deciding factor was, or even the voting margins. Anyway, both players have had fabulous seasons. Parker has won several Player of the Year awards this year, and the other players were clearly happy for Wiggins.
The high school WBCA team was also in attendance, as were several teams who had an All-American on the roster. Stacey Dales, an Oklahoma graduate and player for the WNBA's Chicago Sky emceed and used the forum to announce her retirement -- although it had already been rumored. Dales said that she had been known as a defensive stopper, and told Candace Parker that she'd have an easier time player in Chicago without Dales there.
We also visited the St. Pete Times Forum Arena to see some open practices and press conferences. We saw the Lady Vols going through security -- I guess the arena really is being careful, no exceptions.
All teams seemed eager to play each other. Van Chancellor said he thought his LSU team was being disrespected because papers were all looking ahead to a potential Tennessee-Connecticut matchup. Geno Auriemma (or "Gene Arina," if you are to believe whoever presents the Associated Press Coach of the Year Award) said that "tomorrow night can't come soon enough for all of us."
I took a few other pictures and videos from the practice -- cell phone quality, sorry. I was not able to get out to watch all the teams' practices, so Stanford and LSU fans, sorry, I swear I'm not just trying to hype certain teams. It really is only a coincidence.
(these are also kind of unfortunately silent, but the band was playing here)
This is a Lorin Dixon layup during the Uconn practice:
Tennessee preparing their post players for Sylvia Fowles:
I was able to watch a lot of the Uconn practice. There was a big crowd.
The team spent a lot of time running plays. For those fans who think there's any kind of a Sampson effect with Charde Houston and her hair (though admittedly doubtful after the past few games), the long hair seems to be back.
Freshman Lorin Dixon spent almost the entire time on offense, at the point, practicing running the team against tough defenses. Good thinking, since she's the primary backup for Renee Montgomery and Ketia Swanier.
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