Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

SOMEWHERE NEAR THE TAPPEN ZEE BRIDGE, N.Y. -- The Guru is not lost. But it is late/early Wednesday/Thursday after the Guru arrived here as a staging area to grab some sleep and then fetch AP national correspondent Doug Feinberg across the Hudson River at the Metro North Tarrytown Station so we may proceed to suburban Hartford for UConn media day.

The Guru also departed the City of Brotherly Love after midnight to stay on the scene and soak up the celebration of a certain baseball team's advance to the World Series by winning the National League pennant.

He also planned to report on the above headline 24 hours ago until a conflict arose with a situation involving foreign affairs at one of the Guru's late night diners.

And so we continue.

On Tuesday night, the Guru was on the scene at Chelsea Piers in New York City, as was Feinberg, for the annual V Foundation dinner and fundraising auction that also serves as a preview of the men's and women's games for this season to benefit the fight against cancer.

Rutgers again will participate in the women's event, this time against Georgia in Piscataway, N.J.

Prior to the formal procedings, coaches were available at the reception to chit-chat with reporters -- Villanova's Jay Wright was also in the house to preview the Wildcats' game against Texas in the men's doubleheader at Madison Square Garden.

Judging by Georgia coach Andy Landers and Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer -- both Women's Basketball Hall of Famers -- they used a theme expected to be heard in a lot of places, except where we'll be Thursday afternoon in UConn-land.

"This team is kind of a mystery to me," Landers said about his Bulldogs. "We'll be ok at the post and guard positions, but the wings are a little more of an unknown right now. If they come together, we can be very good."

Rutgers' situation once again is not repetitive from Stringer's last appearance here.

Two years ago, she headed into the beginning of practice with a talented rookie class along with veterans Essence Carson and Matee Ajavon -- now in the WNBA. But Stringer could not imagine how deep the learning curve would be in the early going, highlighted by the Duke massacre of the Scarlet Knights in Piscataway at the Jimmy V game before it all reversed direction down the stretch.

Rutgers got its revenge on Duke and then handled Arizona State to march to the Women's Final Four and national title game, losing to Tennessee.

Last year, Stringer started out with a seasoned group picked to challenge for the national title, thereby having to face a slew of great expectations.

This time, it's sort of a mix from the last two years. A star-studded freshman class has arrived on campus to go with senior Kia Vaughn and junior Epiphanny Prince heading the vets.

But with Ajavon and Carson having moved on, Stringer admitted she needed a different approach.

"It's hard to say what we'll look like. We don't have as many veterans back and we don't have the leadership of those two returning," she said. "So I'm working real hard to make things simple in the beginning."

At the formal presentations, Stringer got personal touching on her own experience as a breast cancer survivor and also referencing the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association's work on behalf of North Carolina State coach Kay Yow, who has been battling the disease.

The late Jim Valvano, for whom the effort by ESPN and the foundation is dedicated, coached the N.C. State men to an NCAA title.

The Guru had a brief chance to catch up with new Rutgers assistant coach Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil, another Women's Basketball Hall of Famer besides being a former Texas star, who expressed her thrill to land the position that was vacated when Marianne Stanley left to be an assistant with the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

The WNBA's New York Liberty coaching staff attended and head coach Patty Coyle clarified the report that followed New York's loss Detroit in the Eastern Conference title game.

It said she did not attend the postgame press conference and was unavailable for comment following the Shock victory.

Coyle said she was in a holding area waiting to be called, but apparently the winning coach went on longer -- no surprise considering his name is Bill Laimbeer -- and no one came back to take them to the media room.

Meanwhile, Coyle's boss Carol Blazejowski was in the house and seen chatting with WNBA president Donna Orender for several minutes,

Considering the prez was on the other side of Blaze's famous 52-point game in Madison Square Garden back in the day, it might have been the longest the former Queens star held off the former Montclair State sensation without yielding a point.

But then again, that may not be true considering we were not privy to their discussion.

Staley Gets "Foster" Disease.

What is it about Big Five women's coaches who quickly develop a case of homesickness not long after they take jobs in the Southeastern Conference?

After Jim Foster left St. Joseph's for Vanderbilt -- he's now at Ohio State -- in Nashville, it didn't take long for the Guru to receive a request for local newspapers when he was heading South to cover the Lady Commodores.

Earlier this week, a go-between heading for South Carolina phoned the Guru to get recent print editions for one Dawn Staley, who missed reading the hometown news.

Despite being internet savy, it is at least refreshing to find someone who stiill prefers to have an actual paper in their hand.

It's still early, but as of this hour no request as come from UConn from the head coach for souvenir debris from the Phillies' celebration. And no request has come from the new Temple head coach to return from Storrs with a trinket or two from her previous location as a Huskies assistant.

We'll be back in the next 24 hours with our day in UConn.

Earlier, the Guru had a reference to foreign affairs.

He leaves you with this sound bite from the other individual in discussing cultural experiences.

Guru: "So how did you come to America?"

Answer: "I boarded an airplane, it flew across the ocean, and then I took a taxi to my destination."

The individual, with no connection to the Guru's ocupation or work, then flashed a grin being quite pleased with that response.

To be continued.

-- Mel