By Mel Greenberg
The WNBA made history of sorts Saturday and Sunday with results that made playoff history.
All four best-of-three conference semifinal series are even at 1-1 and that is the first time each of the four best-of-three series are going the distance since the present sub-divisional format began in 2000.
In terms of holding home-court advantage, Detroit and San Antonio each wasted one shot after successfully winning openers on the road as the higher-seeded team.
On Saturday night in Texas, the prohibitive favorite San Antonio Silver Stars, owning the best overall record, allowed the banged-up Sacramento Monarchs to stay alive 84-67 after Becky Hammon and friends had taken the opener 85-78.
Likewise, the East-favorite Detroit Shock fell at home to the Indiana Fever, 89-82, in overtime Sunday after Detroit won on the road, 81-72. The Fever's Tamika Catchings had 27 points and 10 rebounds.
In the other two series, Seattle and Connecticut each used their arenas to stay alive.
The Connecticut Sun bounced back from the New York Liberty's opening Madison Square Garden 72-63 triumph by evening the score with a 73-70 win in Uncasville, Saturday, staving off a furious New York perimeter attack in the final minutes.
Seattle shock off its 77-67 loss at Los Angeles to beat the Sparks, 64-50, Sunday, as Sue Bird scored 20 points and Sheryl Swoopes added 16..
The four survive-and-advance encounters, as Jim Valvano once labelled the NCAA tournament, begin Monday when Connecticut hosts New York, while San Antonio hosts Sacramento.
The other two series will conclude Tuesday night.
In this most-competitive year, it is hard to say which way things go based on the games played to date. But for the fans, they will be fun.
Remembering Mary Garber
Mary Garber, who was considered the first fulltime female sportswriter died Sunday in North Carolina at age 92.
The Guru first met the legendary Garber years ago in his fledgling days of women's hoops coverage when introduced by North Carolina State coach Kay Yow and her then-assistant Nora Lynn Finch on a visit to Raleigh.
Garber eventually became a Mel Greenberg media award honoree of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) but she has earned many accolades and honors elsewhere.
Here is the obituary off the Associated Press wire. Her own paper has its own tribute, which can be found through the usual google method -- the Guru forgot to grab the link.
We'll try to get some reaction and comment from our friends in Atlantic Coast Conference country the next several days.
Associated Press
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Mary Garber, among the nation’s first female sports writers and the first woman to win the Red Smith Award, The Associated Press Sports Editors’ highest honor, died Sunday. She was 92.
Rose Rush, a longtime friend whose father was an editor at the Winston-Salem Journal and Twin City Sentinel where Garber worked for 51 years, said Garber died early Sunday afternoon.
The Winston-Salem Journal reported Sunday that a minister was making the rounds at the Brookridge Retirement Village where Garber was a resident, and he asked what she had in mind for a spiritual reward in heaven.
“Football season,” she said.
Garber was a sports writer for the Journal and the Sentinel from 1946 through 1997. She started as a society writer during World War II, and moved when the all-male sports department of the Sentinel was depleted.
“Not because I had any ability in sports,” Garber once told the Women’s Sports Foundation, “but because it was the war, and every man was in the armed forces.”
Even though she was banned from locker rooms and forced to sit with the players’ wives instead of in the press box, Garber lobbied to continue covering sports after World War II ended.
Garber first gained access to a locker room at the 1974 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament, 30 years after her sports writing career began. She retired from the Winston-Salem Journal in 1986, but continued to work part-time until 2002.
Garber served as president of the Football Writers Association of America and the Atlantic Coast Sports Writers Association, groups that initially denied her entry. Also in 2005, she became the first woman to win the Red Smith Award, given to someone who has made major contributions to sports journalism.
In 2006, the Association for Women in Sports Media named its annual Pioneer Award for Garber.
“We could not have picked a better namesake,” AWSM president Jenni Carlson said Sunday. “Many of us would not be where we are today without Mary’s trailblazing. She truly paved the way and served as a role model for women in sports media.
“This is a sad day for everyone who works in sports media, but it is particularly sad for the women in this industry. Mary was a pioneer in every sense of the word.”
Also, Garber also was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame and, most recently, the National Sportscasters and Sportwriters Hall of Fame, located in nearby Salisbury.
Garber is survived by a niece and three nephews. Funeral arrangements were pending Sunday night.
-- Mel
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