Women's Hoops Guru

(Guru's precede: The drama involving women's coaching changes at two top Atlantic Ten powers has on recent occasion seen the Guru actually compete against himself fulfilling the requirements dictated by print considerations against the immediacy of the internet and this blog site.

At this hour, however, the Guru is unsure what survived the cutting room floor after the basic straight-from-the-top breaking report. So, to avoid potential duplication in the two locations, the Guru offers an enhanced behind-the-scenes story of the Guru's day into night and as the saying goes in football and NCAA pools, the following is for entertainment purposes only.)

By Mel Greenberg

UNCASVILLE, Conn. - About an hour prior to the hotly-contested WNBA Eastern superpower battle between the host Connecticut Sun and Detroit Shock Tuesday night, former UConn star Kara Wolters came rushing into the media room of the Mohegan Sun Arena on a quick call-to-duty to replace former teammate Rebecca Lobo on the evening's telecast.

In a parellel email observation, the Guru has already been asked how come the Mohegan Sun management did not request him to serve as a quick replacement for any of the magic acts, if necessary, at the casino-entertainment complex after his Tuesday night's performance.

Because the Guru has been jokingly accused by some scribes here of running a job shop through his blog in recent weeks involving several positions, including the appointment of a new Atlantic Ten commissioner, some wondered early this morning how the Guru was able to be planted right in the middle of many notable media members of the famed horde Tuesday night on press row, yet managed to make a longtime Connecticut assistant disappear and prepare to emerge as Temple's new women's basketball coach.

That would be one Tonya Cardoza, a former Virginia star and teammate of Dawn Staley, who is expected before the sun sets Wednesday to be offered and accept the vacant Owls position that occured when Staley departed for a similar job at South Carolina on May 7.

Some claim the Guru was merely trying to help his alma mater limit Atlantic Ten rival George Washington to only two days of Guru blog fame this week by eclipsing the formal appointment and promotion of assistant Mike Bozeman, which was done hours earlier at a press conference in the nation's capital.

The Guru even managed to extract comments from former UConn types in the arena who had experience playing under Cardoza while everyone else in the dresssing room was focused on the Sun's impressive win over the Shock.

Those remarks will appear as part of coverage of the Cardoza impending news the next several days.

Hours earlier as the Guru began the trip to here with his niece Neena, who had never been tio the complex, the Guru learned of the death of his 95-year-old aunt Selda Lavine, the Guru's late mom's sister who passed away Tuesday morning peacefully in Trenton, N.J., after a long and fruitful life.

When the Guru learned late Tuesday night that the funeral won't be held until Friday, Neena, who served with her sister Allison last year as escorts for the Guru's induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, remarked that people are going to think the Guru set it up so the press conference and funeral don't conflict.

Speaking of Allison, the Guru has neglected to mention that on the recent first anniversary of the Guru's induction, coincidentally she became engaged to Aaron Greenfield.

But to return to our narrative, as the Guru neared his arrival to casino-land, a phone call from a source said that Cardoza had emerged as the winner, although it was unknown if the 39-year-old native of Roxbury, Mass., actually was holding an offer or got the offer and tentatively agreed.

Incidentally, as Cardoza takes her new job on the eve of the summer reruiting season, she will have to build a completely new staff in the wake of Staley's exit. Lisa Boyer and Cynthia Jordan will be with Staley at South Carolina, Fred Schmiel is heading to San Diego State as an assistant, and Mary Wooley had been scheduled prior to Staley's exit to leave next month and continue to pursue her post-graduate education.

Meanwhile, as the Guru chased the story, he heard in the wind that Temple's president had wondered how he got the material for Tuesday's print story.

The Guru would respond by saying to blame it on the Owls' school of journalism which years ago taught the Guru tricks to get answers to questions that would not give up anything but in their nature provide the clues needed to move forward.

For example, in the last 24 hours the Guru put such questions out to sources as, "Is there any chance that if the Guru was near downtown later this week he might run into Cardoza?"

Or, "Is the Guru right in noticing a trend that to be a women's coach of the Owls, it's helpful to have time spent at the University of Virginia." Actually, one could also say that about the current football coach.

As the early evening wore on, continuing with the nightmarkes of technology in the home office, the system apparently had been crashing all afternoon, making it impossible for the Guru to file in the regular procedure over the internet.

An email copy never made it through, either, although by the time the Guru learned of the failure, the regular route had been fixed and the Guru did a little re-tooling that all involved felt offered comfort to protect the process and move ahead of the story.

So stay tuned with much more to come after the Guru returns home Wednesday.

Rutgers Assistant Search

OK, you Scarlet Knights fans, don't click that keyboard, yet. The Guru has seen you all take the bait on his guessing game as to one of the candidates to replace Marianne Stanley, who is now an assistant with the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

But understand, that person of Guru-injected mystery is not the only candidate and several people have mentioned recently that a male might be a good fit for the staff. One such person with a WNBA background has been contacted in the Midwest. Another name inquired of the Guru has been an assistant at several schools and has been given credit for having recruited one hidden gem who quickly became a WNBA All-Star after graduation.

As to the Guru's original person of mystery, she does not pre-date the Coyle era. Some people have guessed the right school, the right era, but the wrong teammate, although that person almost fits the profile.

There could be announcement as early Wednesday, according to some WNBA persons here, but that job of actually naming someone in this exercise belongs to coach C. Vivian Stringer and the Rutgers sports information office.

And before some say that the Guru hasn't operated that way in reporting the George Washington or Temple situations, he would respond, that in those situations he did the investigating because of the nature of the topic and the women's beat.

The Rutgers information came because of decades-long friendships and, as such, the Guru did not want to affect the confidentially of the conversation unless individuals involved wanted the information in public.

On the other hand, the surprising vast number of views coming to the site from the Rutgers crowd in the last several seasons made the Guru decide to offer a summer gift of sorts to give you all something to do on days your former superstars are not busy impacting the WNBA or to kill time before your next superstar class arrives.

-- Mel