Women's Hoops Guru

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

Hi everyone,

As Mel has alluded to a few times recently, we're moving this blog to a new platform. From now on, you'll find us at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/womhoops.

There's also a new RSS feed URL that you'll find at the new blog for those of you who read us via Google Reader or other such programs. The short link http://go.philly.com/womhoops still exists, but has been changed to direct you to the new blog.

This version of the blog will stay alive for a little while longer for archival purposes, but there will be no new posts on it.

So come join us at the new site.

(Having discovered the Guru can still post at this site, here is a report of Thursday's actiivites.)

By Mel Greenberg

INDIANAPOLIS -- The first portion of the second annual seminar spread across two days at NCAA headquarters involving the Tournament Committee Mock Bracketing Exercise featured selecting the teams and seeding the first four lines in the draw

Since NCAA.com was doing its own blog, a description of our deliberations can be found over there..

Meanwhile, the Guru would like to note that he arrived at a fabulous new airport in Indy and is writing this using the Hi-Def TV screen in the Marriott hotel room as a monitor.

The dynamic was much different than a year ago involving teams because of the way the season played out.

Although there is a month left before the real selection, the simulation with the available had us preten d it was really mid-March instead of early February.

Thus, Villanova, at 6-2, in the Big East made the field even though the Wildcats have yet to play such conference powers as Connecticut, Louisville, and DePaul.

Temple was left on the table but the Owls control their destiny in the real world and could very well be an at-large team if they rise near the top of the jumbled conference race.

Having current coaches in our group participate this year allowed for good reference point discussions on teams under consideration.

On Friday we will go through the actual bracketing before finishing up around noon.

The NCAA overnight is completing the entire field seed process because we are working in a compressed time frame and not in the four-day format the real committee deliberates.

The Guru will summarize what was done upon his return to Philadelphia after Friday night's desk shift.

-- Mel

(Change of Guru blog venue alert: The platform program housing the blog will be changing as quickly as perhaps Thursday with a new URL etc. Jonathan will post info but the philly.com link will re-route and once this is all figured out you can change your links -- those of you who have them. Until the Guru gets his driving lessons and gains control, the workaround is he will email Jonathan who will post at the new site. Everything to date is archived and the original blog is still operational and can be utilized, if need be, especially by non-Inquirer team members who have been busy at the moment in their current lives. -- Mel)

By Mel Greenberg

Well a year ago your Guru took you through the first NCAA-Mock Bracket exercise for the women's tournament step by step.

Having found the right deal (love those Amex points), the Guru will be heading to Indy in the morning and will be able to stay through the entire process before jetting back to the home office for Friday's desk shift.

This time around, we will play things by ear because of (1) the precede involving a new posting structure, and (2) the NCAA itself will be involved with live-blogging from the room and video.

Also, some of the nuances are different with four current coaches -- Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw, DePaul's Doug Bruno, Texas A&M's Gary Blair, and Oklahoma's Sherri Coale -- involved in the exercise.

Remember this, whatever exists now is supposed to be considered as existing on selection weekend knowing that in reality off the season to date, there will be major changes between now and the end of conference tournaments.

The dynamic is much different than a year ago. Seven teams were solid at the top -- though not necessarily in pecking order -- and remaind so the rest of the way with three other teams fighting for No. 8, the final No. 2 seed, which Texas A&M ultimately won out.

This will be interesting in that this committee is going to be loaded with ESPN types and under-loaded with print types, vanishing breed that we are. Mechelle Voepel had withdrawn, would not comment on whether she is checking the accuracy of Pat Summitt's 999 wins to date, but Charlie Creme will be in the room. So will the real committee to gawk at our deliberations.

Unlike a year ago, many conferences are in flux, but based on what the NCAA gave us as mythical conference champions, the mickeys are off target in terms of disruption.

Last season, we were given Charlotte as a surprise winner in the Atlantic Ten, when either Xavier or George Washington would have been nice. That created the three or four total team argument for Atlantic 10 representation.

So first look at what has been given in simulation as conference tournament champions on our charts. Teams so designated will be considered in the tournament and will not have to be part of our individual 33 at-large or other at-large for discussion columns on our ballots.

Not all conference champions were given and remember this is the Guru's view only the rest of the way in this post..

ACC -- North Carolina -- Fine. One less at-large team to worry about.

Atlantic Sun -- East Tennessee -- One-team conference no matter who wins.

Atlantic Ten -- Xavier -- Eliminates the wrong winner. A year ago, there was a clear top but not now. The Guru thinks a second or third team might be at-large worthy, but will place a bunch of A-10 teams in the others for discussion column in a little bit.

Big Ten -- Ohio State -- The Buckeyes find ways to get out faster then we put them in, but, again, another team not needed to take up space as an at-large vote.

Big East -- Connecticut -- Here's what's amazing from last year. The Huskies could be under-performing and still head for the Trenton regional because nearest geography in principle makes the match a cinch because all other prime contenders for top seeds are located elsewhere in terms of what is a close site for them. The exception, which has been written elsewhere, is California, which cannot play in the Berkeley regional.

C-USA -- SMU. Academic because it might be a one-team deal, here.

Ivy League -- Princeton -- Definitely and appropriately academic for the Ivies. No tournament here, so no wrong winner.

Metro Atlantic -- Marist -- Takes care of business and no worries about needed rescue because of a tournament upset.

Ohio Valley -- Eastern Illinois -- One team deal even though this team was presented holding bid with Murray State named regular season champ.

Patriot -- American. -- Same dynamic as directly above.

SEC -- Tennessee -- Oddly, a wrong winner, but one that would be on an at-large list. Will affect seed discussion, however, for Auburn.

Southern -- Samford -- Wrong winner. Chattanooga will be discussed.

Summit -- Oakland -- Wrong winner and South Dakots State needed a rescue.

Sun Belt -- Middle Tennessee -- Wring winner but actualy best team.

West Coast -- Gonzaga -- Right team won.

Western Athletic -- Nevada winner with Fresno State regular season champ that will land in the NWIT.

So now it's on to the next step. Pick the best 33. Remember what has already been said, so you won't see Xavier, Tennessee, Ohio State, or North Carolina on this list. Also, in reality, some of these would later be deducted if they actually won conference titles.

Going off of Wednsday morning's glance at Colllege RPI.com standings and data, here's the group for at-large. Some conference teams the Guru is temporarily moving over to discussion column to see how they compare because they are closer to borderline/bubble territority.

And a time out to talk about Rutgers because of all the concerns of the fan base.

The Guru will place Rutgers in his 33 not because the Scarlet Knights are hosting and it makes marketing sense. The reason is no matter how far down the line RU is dropped, once the comparisons begin for the last spots a new dynamic begins.

Rutgers compares less favorably to the premium guys, but so what? They are already in the tournament. But in looking at who is left to take, Rutgers off its schedule, etc., compares favorably.
Now if the team were to slide further in reality over the next month, then tough luck. Penn State didn't get a free pass to its arena in 2006.
Integrity of the tournament is still important although if Rutgers makes the field with a low seed and suddenly has its act together, the Scarlet Knights could be the most dangerous low seed in the history of the tournament since Louisiana Tech was a No. 11 when it met Temple in 2005.

The At-Larges

Duke
Florida State
Maryland
Virginia
Georgia Tech
Boston College
Oklahoma
Kansas State
Baylor
Texas A&M
Iowa State
Texas
Oklahoma State
Louisville
Pittsburgh
DePaul
Rutgers
Notre Dame
Indiana
California
Stanford
Arizona State
Auburn
Florida
Vanderbilt
South Dakota State

Total 26 but 2 could be off list as conference champs.

Others for discussion

Charlotte
George Washington
St. Bonaventure
Richmond
Temple
Texas Tech
Marquette
Villanova
Michigan State
Purdue
Minnesota
Iowa
VCU -- could become conference champ
Wis-Green Bay -- coune become conference champ
UCLA
Georgia
LSU

16 and two could become champ

That's It

Talk to you from Indy

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

President Obama promised changed when campaigning for office, but he didn't indicate that movement in The Associated Press women's poll would be part of the package.

While Connecticut continues to be fillibuster proof from any challenge to the Huskies' NCAA title agenda, here's an intriguing look at the AP Poll of exactly a year ago compared to where those teams are now.

Obviously, movement like this has to be needed stimulus to draw more interest in the sport.

Here we go with last year's list first.

1. Connecticut -- Still in power at No. 1
2. Tennessee -- Plunged to No. 12 with another dip ahead.
3. North Carolina -- Fell to a tie for No.8
4. Maryland -- Dipped down to No. 13 but had been higher
5. Baylor -- Has been higher but fell to No. 8 with the Tar Heels
6. Stanford -- In same neighborhood at No. 7.
7. Rutgers -- Unranked and likely to stay that way for now.
8. LSU -- Dropped out after preseason poll.
9. Calkifornia -- Shot up to all-time high at No. 3. (But are the Bears a No. 1 seed).
10. Oklahoma -- Rocketed to No. 2 but Sherri Coale's WBCA presidency is not a factor.

Time out sub-total -- Two gone altogether and two more with major dips.

11. Duke -- Currently fourth and made it to third. (Don't ask about the Blue Devils and Coaches Poll).
12. West Virginia -- Unranked
13. Old Dominion -- Unranked and fallen to the pack in the CAA.
14. George Washington -- Where have you gone Joe McKeown. -- He's unranked, too.
15. Pittsburgh -- Now at 21 but could rise again.
16. Notre Dame -- Holding at No. 17
17. Oklahoma State -- Had been ranked but not now
18. Kansas State -- No bailout needed, still at No. 18
19. Ohio State -- Up at No. 15 but those postseason rapids are on the horizon.
20. Utah -- Unranked
21. Texas A&M -- Shot up to No. 10 but had been even higher off of last year's Elite Eight
22. Wyoming -- Unranked
23. Syracuse -- Unranked and tripped up. (A little UConn media humor).
24. Georgia -- Uranked but chance to join the Summitt's spoiler club Thursday night in Knoxville.
25. DePaul -- Still at No. 25 after recent return.

That means nine teams missing overall from comprable poll and two more had major shifts.

Now, here's a look at the replacement club.

Lousville -- Unranked to No. 5. An all-time, though Jeff Walz has been there before as a Maryland assistant.
Auburn -- Unranked to No. 7 with the return of Nell Fortner to coaching success. Had equal high rankings as a player at Texas and equal Q ratings as a studio host at ESPN.
Florida -- Unranked to No. 11. The Butler, er Amanda Butler, is doing it to opponents.
Texas -- Unranked to No. 16 but had been higher.
Virginia -- Unranked to No. 17 but Cavaliers a year ago soon returned to the rankings.
Iowa State -- Unranked to No. 21 as part of the Big 12 fiesta.
Xavier -- Unranked to No. 23 is taking GWU's Atlantic Ten spot.
South Dakota State -- Uranked to No. 24 as Division I rookie program of the year.

And in the spirt of change, did you know that 10 teams in this week's poll had made less than 130 appearances in the 33-year, 169-week history.

Here's the breakdown.

The (successful) amateurs

Florida 126
DePaul 102
Iowa State 98
Texas A&M 79
California 59
Louisville 34
Xavier 23
Pittsburgh 22
Florida State 18
South Dakota State 5

Next Four

Notre Dame 172
Oklahoma 170
Kansas State 152
Baylor 141

More Veteran

Duke 282
Ohio State 228

Gold Standard

Stanford 354
Connecticut 323
Maryland 314
Auburn 313
Virginia 308
Vanderbilt 308
North Carolina 302

Head Of The Class

Tennessee 555
Texas 420

Mock Bracket Alert
Preview Coming Later Wednesday Whether We Punch Plane Ticket or Not.

WNBA: Economic Realities

Although deep into the collegiate scene, the Guru keeps getting asked about the economic health of the WNBA in consideration of the current climate.

Well, on the upside, the new ESPN rights-fee contract kicks in but it is still unclear what teams, individually, are getting out of the deal. The Guru has heard it both ways.

But there have been signs of a pinch.

The fabled Houston Comets went the way of other comets, but may return some day to make Texas a two-team state again instead of San Antonio being Lone Stars.

Then we noticed something missing from this week's announcement of the WNBA draft being held again at NBA Entertainment Headquarters in Seacaucus, N.J.

The last three seasons, the event had been held at the Final Four, but it had to cost a few bucks to sert up shop in a remote location. We're not complaining as long as the WNBA party at the finals is still on. (A friend asked the Guru to say that.)

And there's time to hold it a week later because the season is starting later.

But it is much cheaper with everything in place in Jersey and the 3 p.m. start even allows morning flights for draftees to arrive at nearby Newark thus saving hotel costs.

It will be fine as long as the wind or unexpected cold air could be kept out of the media tent.

Rosters cut from 13 to 11: Well, those two spots were phantom positions at places, anyway.

The All-Star game returns to the Mohegan Sun.

Again, no complaints here. Many thought the event in casinoland was one of the best ever when last held there.

But again, look at the reality not counting the Mohegans' own economic dealings.

When the WNBA decided dead bodies were no longer needed to step over for Connecticut to get a franchise, the Mohegans practically invented stimulus in working with the WNBA folks.

Mucho infrastructure costs for the event will be absorbed.

That said, maybe the Guru can now go home and find a parking place on a street that has a way of looking more like the North Pole than the rest of the neighborhood when a few flakes hit the ground.

The Guru returns with the Mock Bracket preview in a few hours, well, maybe a few hours plus.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: Since Kay Yow's passing, words of eloquence in her memory have been written and spoken with much more to come with the arrival of Pink Zone week in the fight against cancer. Before events of the season accelerate, the Guru thought it be appropriate to at least allow some stories of his relationship with the Hall of Fame North Carolina State coach over the years.)

By Mel Greenberg

When the funeral for North Carolina State Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach Kay Yow was recently held, some might have been surprised when she appeared in a video to say her farewell as part of a ceremony she meticulously planned in advance.

Though I was unable to attend, my reaction in reading the Associated Press account of the services was once again one of how well Yow could harness existing media technology to deliver her message.

Way back in Day One when I was organizing what became the Associated Poll, she was one of my first phone calls in assembling a voting board.

I remember her excitement over what she thought the venture would do for media coverage, thinking way ahead of where I was in the process.

In the won-loss records of positives in life against the negatives, Yow was an unbeaten champion.

And once she quickly got to know someone, they became part of her “family,” be it players, coaches, or even media members.

I remember my first trip to Raleigh back in 1976 when Kay couldn’t wait to introduce me to local sportswriter Mary Garber, a pioneer most definitely in the advancement of female membership in the media.

It’s ironic that Garber passed away a few months before Kay, but I’m sure the two have already had quite the reunion.

In the first season of the poll, North Carolina State hosted Immaculata, still a power at the time, in a game that was played on what became another rare snowy night in the history of the Tar Heel State.

Immaculate won, but Kay was on the phone early the following morning gushing over the hundreds of fans lined up in the foul weather the night before waiting to enter the arena. She was sure the poll had caused the heavy attendance.

I told her that her team had something to do with the crowd, also.

As Title IX helped bring increased support for women’s programs internally on collegiate campuses, Kay’s sports information directors through the years were always top notch.

The first couple of years when wire service coverage was virtually non-existent, the Wolfpack department worked the phones to various sites of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) tournament to get some results and detail and then fed them in my direction to produce roundup stories

Remember this was at a time when computers had yet to become commonplace, and words like fax, telecopier, modem, and internet had yet to enter the daily vocabulary.

Whenever someone phones here with some historical question regarding the rankings in what is now a mega-sized database, I always think of Kay.

Listen, at this point in time someone would have caught up and produced an overall rankings compiliation.

But after Year Five, Kay had her media person call to check on some historical data regarding N.C. State and the rankings. They were stunned to learn I had not kept track – it was enough of an effort just to produce a poll every week and at that time I was tied to several other duties at The Inquirer outside the sports department.

Kay called a while later to give me a soft, but stern, coach-player lecture.

“You’ve got to start keeping a history, Mel, everyone will be counting on your for that,” she said.

“Yes, Coach,” I replied.

She had good reason to care, by the way. Of the teams in the very first women’s poll in November, 1976, Maryland and North Carolina State lasted the longest in terms of consecutive weeks before dropping out at the same time.

“I feel like Kay and I have been together my entire career,” former Maryland coach Chris Weller said to me the day after Kay passed away as I was at the Terrapins-North Carolina game at College Park.

Weller related that she began to get calls from many of her former players after the news of Kay’s passing became public.

To finish the database story, fortunately, between archived copies of the paper and others who were keeping their own records – such as then UCLA assistant Colleen Matsuhara -- along with the fact that the total number of polls in a season were much less than today – I was able to find them all.

A few years later, the cyber-world began to appear and all the info was housed into an early database program. Remarkably, it survived and grew with every software evolvement to now appear in the 1,3000-plus records file in an excel program format.

Furthermore, some Geek friend at the paper was able to create a supplementary program that allows all the special data – Most No. 1s, most top 10s, etc. – that is produced today, but all of it in this particular file is owed to Kay’s lecture.

There were times when Kay thought I might have influence with her athletic department when she wanted to take some particular action and because her superiors and I had come to know each other off my trips to N.C. State games.

I remember one call I had gotten at the time the position Associate Head Coach was non-existent.

Kay wanted to elevate then-assistant Nora Lynn Finch, now the Atlantic Coast Conference head of women’s basketball, to the title Co-Head Coach.

Needless to say, there was resistance to that concept in the home office and Kay thought I might be able to provide some extra support.

“Mel, what is so difficult?” I remember Kay saying to me. “I coach the offense and Nora Lynn coaches the defense. So why can’t we be co-head coaches?”

Eventually, Nora Lynn was elevated as the Wolfpack’s senior women’s administrator and appropriately became the first chair of the NCAA women’s basketball committee in 1982.

In 1991, Kay was president of the WBCA, which was about to present its first media award at the Final Four in New Orleans.

Obviously, I had to be made aware of being the recipient so I would show up at the luncheon considering I was also in town to cover the tournament.

But apparently there was going to be more to the story, and all the while in the holding room, Kay was prancing around with this great little “I’ve got a secret” look that she couldn’t wait to spring on everyone during her presentation.

And so a while later, Kay had me at the podium, went on for a bit, well more than a bit, telling the Immaculata story and a few other things before pausing and then saying, “And we have another surprise.

“Everyone hereafter who wins this award will be receiving the WBCA Mel Greenberg Media Award.”

Needless to say, everything that had been assembled for the acceptance speech, was temporarily knocked from my mind. It still seems like yesterday, though, how overjoyed and excited she was.

I remember being more excited for her happiness then my actually receiving the honor.

Years later she had that same look at a front row seat at the Final Four when she was in on our secret plot to surprise her former player Debbie Antonelli, now an ESPN broadcaster, with the honor.

In 1988, I was sent out to Colorado Springs to collect material for the women’s basketball portion of our Olympic section – Kay was then the coach of the team.

At the end of each practice at the Air Force Academy, the players could be heard yelling “Oreos, Oreos.”

If the session went well, Yow’s players were given Oreo sandwich cookies.

“I don’t remember that exactly, but I do know Kay always had a bunch of goodies to motivate her players,” North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell, then an Olympic assistant, remembered.

When it came to winning the first gold medal without the associated Russian United States boycotts in 1980 and 1984, Kay’s team was a heavy favorite.

To get the job done, she had turned most of the way in Korea to a smaller lineup with recently-graduated Penn State all-American point guard Suzie McConnell-Serio running the offense.

But when the outcome was undecided late in the game, she went to veteran post star Anne Donovan, who had been on the bench, to enter the game and Donovan delivered with as few key rebounds and scores to put the gold safely into American hands.

Again, at the time of her USA involvement, Kay was still thinking about media.

“We have to win this, because people who don’t normally watch women’s basketball will be watching the Olympics,” she said. “If we do well, then perhaps we will begin to see more of our games on television.”

There was one memento she received after the Seoul games that delighted her.

Dick Engberg, who broadcasted the gold medal game, gave Kay a board with all his notes mounted.

She thought that was so special and said it was going to have a special place in her office.

I remember Kay was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and her patience at the morning press availability.

In most years, the media crowd usually flocks around the notable men's inductees.

But in wanting to be fair, they will stop by the table to speak with the women's inductee, but in doing so, some questions are asked that would cause many of the readers of the Guru's blog to, well, roll their eyes, to put it mildly.

The Guru was waiting in line to get some quick quotes of some historical recollections.

However, some of the aforementioned questions were offered from a few in front.

But the Guru remembers Kay answering each one straight up without one glance of negativity and treating each person approaching her as someone special.

A year ago when my mother passed away after a much shorter battle with cancer than Kay’s, one of the first cards we received came from her with a personal and moving note.

Kay did not speak of her own situation, but her words of comfort were remarkable and again another of those ongoing efforts she always made to consider those in constant contact with her as part of her family.

North Carolina State in AP Poll History

Having mentioned the poll database that Kay inspired, her is where she and the Wolfpack stand in Week No. 569.

On the all-time list of appearances by coaches with their teams, Yow is currently seventh at 326, although she will soon be topped by Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, who is at 323.

Former Louisiana Tech head coach Leon Barmore, now a Baylor assistant, is at 325.

Virginia’s Debbie Ryan (308), and Ohio State’s Jim Foster (307) are next closest.

Former Auburn coach Joe Ciampi (290) is retired and North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchell is next at 273.

The Wolfpack, who were recently passed by Oklahoma, are 23rd in Top Five appearances with 34, followed by Ohio State (29) and Notre Dame (28) next closest.

In Top 10 appearances, N.C. State is 18th at 133, just behind Texas Tech (134) and ahead of Auburn (127).

The all-time high is a No. 2 ranking, which occurred four times in 1977-78, and four more times in 1990-91.

The most recent Top Five appearance was a No. 3 on Jan. 10, 2000, and the most recent Top 10 ranking was 10th, December 3, 2001. The most recent overall ranking was 18th in the final poll of 2006-07 just before Yow’s team made a dramatic run to the Sweet 16.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Holy Family women's coach Mike McLaughlin, in his 14th season with the Tigers at his almater, reached 400 wins Tuesday night after a 64-47 victory over University of Sciences in a Central Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Conference game at the Bobby Morgan Arena in University of Science.

The 43-year-old McLauhglin (400-59), whose team competes in Division II, became the fastest women's coach at any level to reach 400 wins and also faster than any Division I men's coach.

It's possible that he might have also been quicker than other men's coaches in other divisions but the data is still under research.

Meanwhile, weather concerns and obligations to his dates with his history kept your Guru here instead of north at the UConn-Rutgers game in Hartford to cover McLaughlin's impending win.

Before you ask, the Guru did not have faith in that other milestone occurring to grab a plane to Oklahoma City Monday night.

The print story on Holy Family will be somewhere in the Philly.com sports site.

The Guru, at the hour, is still playing with plane fares to attend the NCAA mock bracket session Thursday and Friday in Indianapolis and does not plan to be in Knoxville, when Tennessee's favorite rival, as opposed to former rival, will try to prevent Pat Summitt's 1,000th win with the visit from Georgia and Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ('07) classmate of the Guru's Andy Landers.

Summitt, incidentally, got victory 400 in game number 510.

As for Tuesday's night's quick particulars, to steal from the Guru's own print copy:

McLaughlin’s parents were in the stands to watch their son’s achievement, as were his wife Ginny; daughters Courtney (15), whose birthday is next week; Kelsey (9), and son Michael (12).
With the win official, Kelsey jumped into her father’s arms before McLaughlin’s players surrounded him with a big hug.

Holy Family has dominated the CACC, winning 59 straight conference games.

The Tigers enjoyed one of their best seasons last year, going unbeaten until the NCAA II tournament regional final and finishing 32-1.

McLaughlin, after Tuesday's game: "I give our team a lot of credit,” McLaughlin said afterwards. “Our players knew they could be part of history, but they stayed focus on what we wanted to do. We tried to avoid this pre-talk of what could occur.

“They were really focused to make this happen.”

Christine McCollum scored 20 points for the Tigers (19-4, 12-0 CACC), while Lauren Peters and Melissa Brooks each added 15 points.

Allison Weiss scored 15 points for the Devils (9-9, 6-4), who were hounded into 22 turnovers compared to nine by Holy Family.

“I just told our team that those that came before them contributed to this moment and put them in position to be here for this moment for 400 victories,” McLaughlin said. “The players before laid the groundwork.”

The Guru has more planned to file in two other blogs later Tuesday night for those who might be reading this now.

-- Mel

(This is AP's coverage. More to come later -- Mel)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

GIBSONVILLE, N.C. -- North Carolina State women's basketball coach Kay Yow has been laid to rest a week after her death following a long fight against cancer.

Yow was buried Saturday in her hometown of Gibsonville, about 70 miles west of North Carolina State's campus in Raleigh. The Hall of Famer coached at nearby Elon for four years before taking over at N.C. State in 1975 and finishing her career with more than 700 career victories.

About 300 mourners attended the graveside service on a chilly and windy morning, including the Wolfpack team and coaching staff. Each placed a rose on Yow's casket, then boarded a bus for Sunday's game at Virginia Tech.

Gibsonville mayor Leonard Williams read a proclamation calling for flags to be lowered to half-staff for the day in Yow's memory.

The service capped an emotionally draining week for the Wolfpack. After her death last weekend, the team went to a mall Monday to choose clothes for Yow's funeral, a task interim coach Stephanie Glance said was easier to do together than individually.

The team returned to practice Tuesday, then attended a campus tribute ceremony at Reynolds Coliseum -- home of "Kay Yow Court" -- on Wednesday night. The next day, the team played its first game since her death, falling to Boston College 62-51.

On Friday, more than 1,400 mourners -- including Tennessee coach Pat Summitt and former NFL coach and N.C. State alumnus Bill Cowher -- attended Yow's funeral service at a church in Cary, just outside of Raleigh.

"We all have known this was coming and we've all known the life that Kay's lived," said Neil Whitaker, Yow's cousin and funeral director. "You move on, but there are things you have to keep in mind. You need to focus on what she wants us to focus on, and that's being the right kind of person and doing the right things and having a strong Christian faith."

Yow was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, but led the U.S. Olympic women's team to a gold medal the following season. The disease recurred during the 2004-05 season, forcing to her to leave her team twice in past seasons to focus on treatment even as she raised research money and cancer awareness.

She took a four-game leave in December because she said she had very little energy, and announced shortly after the new year that she would not return this season. She soon entered a hospital and spent about a week there before she died at age 66.

Menwhile, teams across the country Saturday honored Yow, wearing pink ribbons and other attire as part of the ongoing fight against cancer with women's basketball programs supporting the fund begun in Yow's name a year ago by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA).

From pink whistles to pink warm-up shirts, Yow was honored at
women’s college basketball games around the country Saturday, the day
she was laid to rest.

Pink is commonly used by groups that try to raise awareness of the disease and
raise funds to help search for a cure.

Kansas and No. 11 Texas A&M wore pink shirts before their game at
College Station, Texas, and officials at the Rutgers-South Florida,
Oklahoma-Missouri, and Cincinnati-Notre Dame games all used pink
whistles.

“We do everything for her memory and in memory of those we have
lost and celebrating those who have survived and keeping the fight,”
said Kansas coach Bonnie Henrickson after a 73-60 loss to No. 11 Texas
A&M. “It’s her awareness, her public fight with that disease.

“She didn’t lose it, she beat it three times and I think she wins
because she’s created so much awareness and she was willing to step
out in the spotlight and speak to all of us who can do so much. And we
need to do more.”

The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association issued a waiver this
week to allow teams to wear pink game jerseys, headbands, and shooting
shirts to honor Yow until Feb. 22.

N.C. State wore pink trimmed uniforms bearing the name “Yow” on
the back and pink shoes before its game on Thursday against Boston
College. The Wolfpack also had a pink heart with her last name on it
attached to their jerseys.

Teams had already been given permission to wear pink during the
week of Feb. 13-22 as part of “The Pink Zone” to help raise awareness
for breast cancer.

“Kay has championed the cause. All we need to do is whatever we
can do,” said Texas A&M coach Gary Blair, who along with his coaching
staff wore the pink breast cancer ribbons upside down for Yow. “Even
in this tough economic environment we need to find a way to help. It’s
a win-win situation not just for cancer, but for what women’s
basketball can do.”

(Guru's Note: This is AP's coverage of North Carolina State Hall of Fame Women's Basketball Coach Kay Yow's Funeral.)

By AARON BEARD
AP Sports Writer

CARY, N.C. — Kay Yow didn’t ask one of her famous friends to speak
at her funeral. Instead, the longtime North Carolina State women’s
basketball coach had a message for them.
“And now I say farewell,” Yow said. “And it’s been a wonderful
journey, especially since the time I accepted Jesus as my lord and
savior.”
In a video played to the hundreds of fans and colleagues who
gathered Friday at a suburban Raleigh church for Yow’s funeral, she
thanked the legion of supporters who guided her through a two-decade
long fight with breast cancer and recounted with passion her deep
Christian faith.
“It has changed my life,” Yow said. “It has changed the life of
every person who has accepted him.”
Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, yet went on to lead
the U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal the next year. She won more
than 700 games in her career and was inducted into the Naismith Hall
of Fame in 2002.
But for many, Yow was best known for her unwavering resolve while
fighting cancer, which recurred during the 2004-05 season and had
lingered in the years since. She raised awareness and money for
research while staying with her team through the debilitating effects
of the disease and chemotherapy treatments.
She had to take a four-game leave in December due to what was
described as extremely low energy. She announced shortly after the new
year that she would not return this season. She soon entered a
hospital for treatment and spent about a week there before she died
last weekend. She was 66.
“Her battle with breast cancer was never about herself,” said
Megan Smith, an employee at the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer fund in Atlanta,
before the funeral. “She was such a courageous and humble person at
the same time.”
UConn coach Geno Auriemma, North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell
and Miami coach Katie Meier stopped at a viewing for Yow, while Duke
coach Joanne P. McCallie and her team, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt,
Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer and Texas coach Gale Goestenkors, the
former coach at Duke, arrived early for the service.
Others paying respects included former N.C. State football coach
Chuck Amato and current coach Tom O’Brien, and N.C. State alumnus and
former NFL coach Bill Cowher. Yow will be buried Saturday in her
hometown of Gibsonville.
But none of Yow’s famous friends were slated to speak at a service
she designed.
“She did not want to show any kind of favoritism because there was
just none in her heart. None,” the Rev. Mitchell Gregory, her pastor
at Cary Alliance Church.
Retired professor Janie Brown, the former chair of the physical
education department at Elon University, remembered speaking to Yow a
couple of years ago for a project on the history of women’s sports.
She said Yow spoke about balancing teaching, academic advising and
even the little things like taping her players’ ankles.
“I think that was always her attitude. Whatever the situation, you
deal with it. That’s what she’s done,” Brown said. “I’m a good friend,
but I’m also a great admirer of what she does. And I think we would
hope we could live a life with that kind of influence.”
Friday’s events are part of an emotionally draining week for the
players and coaches she left behind at N.C. State. On Monday, the team
went to an area mall to pick out clothes for Yow’s funeral, a task
that interim coach Stephanie Glance said was easier to do together
than individually.
The team returned to practice Tuesday, then attended the campus
tribute ceremony at Reynolds Coliseum, home of “Kay Yow Court,”
Wednesday night. The next day, the team played its first game since
her death, falling to Boston College 62-51.
At each public event, there have been numerous fans wearing pink —
the color of breast cancer awareness — and eager to share their
stories of how Yow inspired them while battling the disease.
She spent 38 season as a coach, 34 with N.C. State. She won four
ACC tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and
reached the Final Four in 1998.
Yow took a 16-game leave to focus on her health during the 2006-07
season. Her return that year sparked an emotional late-season run to
the NCAA tournament’s round of 16.
She also served on the board of the V Foundation for Cancer
Research, which was founded by ESPN and her friend and colleague,
former N.C. State men’s coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993.

(Guru's Note: The Guru's Own Commentary Will Come After Attending the Maryland-North Carolina Game Sunday Night. But this is another aspect of her wonderlife and career worth noting for the moment.).

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - In the long and illustrious career of North Carolina State's Kay Yow, whose Hal of Fame career as the legendary Wolfpack women's basketball coach ended Saturday when cancer claimed her at age 66 after a lengthy battle, the Philadelphia area was practically a second home.

Over the years her teams played three of the Big Five schools -- Temple, St. Joseph's and Villanova with the later two also matchup in NCAA tournaments.

One of Yow's earliest recruiting coups occurred when she was able to land Linda Page, who broke Wilt Chamberlain's high school record in scoring over 100 points in a game.

Page helped N.C. State quickly become a national women's basketball power.

"When it comes to coaches, Yow was one of the great ones," said Mike Flynn, the head of the nationally-regarded Blue Star AAU program who had Page as a member of the Philadelphia Belles and remembers the early trips here Yow made to evaluate the local high school superstar.

Yow also had strong contacts across the river in South Jersey and years later matched up against two local products on the sidelines -- Bernadette McGlade, now commissioner of the Atlantic Ten, and her sister Agnus Berenato, now coach of the Pittsburgh Panthers.

In the early 1990s N.C. State and Virginia, which had attracted Dawn Staley, matched up in some classic ACC confrontations including a triple-overtime encounter won by the Cavaliers.

After Staley became a head coach at Temple, the Owls travelled to Raleigh in Staley's first season and Temple lost in the closing minutes on a night that Yow reached her 600th career win.

Both coaches jokingly noted that the win against Staley was the price for Virginia's win in that game or Yow would have reached 600 one game before Temple's visit in the winter of 2000.

Another local star in later years who helped N.C. State was Gillian Goring, who had played at Germantown Academy and after several stops, joined the Wolfpack because she just knew she had to play for Yow.

Goring, drafted by the WNBA's Washington Mystics, was one of the key players helping the Wolfpack's fabled run to the NCAA's Sweet 16 in 2007 when Yow returned to the bench after missing 16 games because of her dramatic fight against breast cancer.

Yow was one of the charter voters when the Associated Press women's poll was launched in 1976 and her Wolfpack team along with Atlantic Coast rival Maryland were the last two of the teams from the very first preseason poll who stayed in the rankings the longest until dropping out the same week several years later.

Rutgers Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Strnger issued a statement on Yow's passing Saturday prior to the Scarlet Knights' game against DePaul in Chicago.

“I am deeply saddened by the passing of Kay Yow. She taught all of us how to handle personal battles with a great deal of grace and acceptance and by believing that God would see us through. She rarely complained, as most of us would or ever wonder why this had happened to her. When I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer, Kay was one of the handful of people I told. I asked her why me? Kay was the person I could best identify with and knew would understand. And she did. I admired that she made her life so open and one day I hoped to do the same to help other women.

"Kay showed us how to handle one of the most difficult things-cancer-in the most dignified and courageous manner. She taught us what it is to have real passion for the sport, any sport. She continued to fight and went about doing what she loved best: coaching. She used every ounce of energy she had left to give to those young ladies. She was and will always be an inspiration to so many people.

"We have lost a pioneer and an ambassador of women’s basketball. I have lost a friend. My thoughts and prayers are with her family, both the Yow family and also the NC State family.”

On Saturday, both Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw and Villanova coach Harry Perretta commented on Yow after the Wildcats upset the No. 13 Irish at Villanova.

"She was someone everyone respected and admired for the way she always handled herself throughout her life," McGraw said.

"And I think it's a great loss for the entire basketball committee and our thoughts and prayers are with her."

Perretta had a long-standing friendship with Yow over three decades.

"I got a phone call at 8:30 this morning and hadn't seen anything on the ticker," Perretta said.

"I knew she wasn't doing well, because I had taked to Debbie Antonelli," Perretta said of a former Wolfpack player who now broadcasts games on ESPN and other networks.

"You couldn't get any information how Kay was doing, but I knew she wasn't doing well.

"I got the message to Sister Rose Maria, I called her mother," he said of former Wildcat star Shelly Pennefather, now a cloistered nun who played for Villanova against the Wolfpack.

"It's just a said thing, so many years she fought that disease," Perretta said. "I knew her pretty well.

"It was interesting, when I spoke to her in August, it was really like unbelievable, she was so calm. She said, `You know Harry, medicine can't cure me now, I need a miracle," he related.

"But she wasn't afraid. She wasn't scared. It was like inspiring and it's really sad. But from what I heard she was in a lot of pain so I'm happy she won't have to suffer anymore."

Perretta would like to attend the viewing Friday and funeral Saturday in North Carolina but like many coaches, he may not be able to do so because of his team's schedule.

"What they should do is either have a memorial service at the Final Four in St. Louis, or a week after and right before recruiting starts again, have it in Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh so every coach can attend."

Late Saturday, an email arrived with a reaction from USA basketball, which had Yow in its family off her coaching the U.S. to a gold medal in the 1988 Olympics.

That team had former Penn State coach Suzie McConnell-Serio, now coaching Duquesne and who was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame last spring.

"USA Basketball is mourning the loss today of Kay Yow, a friend, coach, mentor, leader and pioneer in women's basketball. Her accomplishments were many within the USA Basketball family. As a member of seven USA Basketball staffs over a 10-year span, the pinnacle of her USA career came when she led the 1986 USA World Championship and 1988 U.S. Olympic Teams to gold medals. Kay has been an inspiration both on and off the court throughout her storied career. However, it has been during her struggles with cancer that Kay has inspired us most. All of us in the USA Basketball family will miss her wonderful smile, personality and strength of character."

Kay Yow's History with USA Basketball:

As A USA Basketball Head Coach:
Event Medal Record
1988 Olympic Games Gold Medal 5-0
1986 World Championship Gold Medal 7-0
1986 Goodwill Games Gold Medal 5-0
1981 World University Games Silver Medal 6-1

-- Mel

(Guru's note: Here's an AP roundup of reaction to the passing of Hall of Famer and NC State coaching legend Kay Yow. I'll be back with more after the desk shift off emails that have been flooding the in-box, for good reason, Saturday. Some of thiose comments are in this AP story).

By AARON BEARD
AP Sports Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. — Sylvia Hatchell worked as an assistant to Kay Yow
in the Olympics and coached against her for more than 20 years in an
Atlantic Coast Conference rivalry of next-door neighbor programs.
She can’t imagine what it will be like to not see her friend on
the sideline for North Carolina State again.
“Her presence and competitive spirit will be greatly missed in the
ACC,” the North Carolina coach said in a statement after Yow’s death
Saturday following a two-decade fight against cancer. “I don’t know of
anyone in the world of women’s basketball that doesn’t owe a debt of
gratitude to Kay.”
Yow’s death prompted an outpouring of condolences and
recollections, especially from those in the coaching community who
witnessed her long battle with breast cancer. Nearly all remembered
Yow’s grace and courage as she fought the debilitating effects of the
disease, which she was diagnosed with in 1987 and recurred during the
2004-05 season.
She won 737 games in 38 years on the sideline and served on the
board of The V Foundation for Cancer Research. It was founded by ESPN
and former N.C. State men’s coach Jim Valvano, her close friend who
died of cancer in 1993.
Duke men’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski, who’s been active in Coaches
vs. Cancer for years, credited Yow for the “amazing awareness” she
brought to the fight against cancer.
“The really great thing about her was she had the courage to fight
the battle in public,” Krzyzewski said after his second-ranked Blue
Devils beat Maryland on Saturday. “As a result, she not only fought
for her, she fought for everyone who has cancer or will have cancer
and the families involved.”
Duke women’s coach, Joanne P. McCallie, remembered Yow for her
courage, particularly in how open she was as she fought cancer.
“I’ve never known a woman to share her story so eloquently under
such incredible conditions,” she said. “A lot of people are afraid,
they’re afraid to share their story. And Kay was never afraid.
In partnership with The V Foundation, Yow joined efforts with the
Women’s Basketball Coaches Association to launch the Kay Yow/WBCA
Cancer Fund. Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said getting the fund going
“put Kay on a mission.”
“She fought for cancer funding the same way she fought the
disease, positive and determined every step of the way,” Summitt said
in a statement.
Debbie Antonelli, who played for Yow in the mid-1980s, knew her
for more than 30 years and said Yow’s influence went far beyond how
she played the game.
“She’s impacted everything about my personal life, including how I
raise my children,” said Antonelli, a color analyst for FOX. “She gave
a lifetime of service to her faith and to her family and her friends
and certainly to all her former players.”
As news of Yow’s death spread, several schools held a moment of
silence to honor her before games, including the N.C. State-Boston
College, Maryland-Duke, Tennessee-Memphis and Connecticut-Notre Dame
men’s games. There was also a moment of silence before the Kansas
State-Kansas women’s game, where Jayhawks coach Bonnie Henrickson
described Yow as “an unbelievable presence in our profession.”
“You would try to cheer her up and 75 percent of the time, she was
trying to cheer you up. It was never about her,” Henrickson said. “It
was never about her battle. ... I’ve never heard anybody say a bad
word about that woman. And in this business, that doesn’t happen. I
promise you that doesn’t happen.”
Yow’s absence will be most felt by coaches in the ACC, where Yow
has been a fixture for more than three decades. Georgia Tech coach
MaChelle Joseph said Yow “represented what was good about our game,”
while Clemson coach and former Wolfpack player Cristy McKinney
expressed some relief along with sadness that her mentor “is in a
better place” after such a long, painful fight.
As ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement, “What an
impact Kay had on so many.”
“She was kind of the soul of our coaching group in the ACC,” said
Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, who has had her own battle with pancreatic
cancer. “It’s just a very, very sad day for all of us.”
———

AP Sports Writers Doug Tucker in Lawrence, Kan., Charles Odum in
Atlanta and Hank Kurz Jr. in Richmond, Va., contributed to this
report.

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

The news broke a bit before 9 a.m. Eastern Time, just as those of us in this part of the country who decided to sleep in this morning were waking up.

RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina State's Kay Yow, the Hall of Fame women's basketball coach who won more than 700 games while earning fans with her decades-long fight against breast cancer, died on Saturday. She was 66.

The Associated Press and the Raleigh News and Observer have both posted obituary stories that are worth reading, as well as retrospective photo galleries.

I also have this quote from Yale women's basketball coach Chris Gobrecht, whose team beat N.C. State back on Nov. 22 in Minneapolis. Gobrecth was speaking during the Ivy League women's basketball coaches teleconference on Jan. 14, and I asked her what it was like to play and beat Yow's team.

That was a very special experience and it was one of those things that when the game was over I turned to my assistants and said there's probably 100 coaches in this country that I would have rather beaten than Kay Yow.

I had a chance to talk to her before the game and she's just in such a good place with everything she's dealing with. She's a tremendous individual. I think she's very proud of all the good that's come out of the circumstances she's had to endure. Her team just loves her and you can just feel it, everything that goes on. She's got a really wonderful group of players.

They had every reason to be pretty ticked off that an Ivy League team would come in and play like that against them, and they just handled themselves with so much class. There wasn't a single attitude or uppityness about any of those players. It's just a class program and she's one of the great, great women in America, not just in basketball.

By Mel Greenberg

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The way top-ranked Connecticut excelled in its “board” scores Monday night in an unbeatens battle of 1 vs. 2 against North Carolina, the Huskies performed as the Rhodes Scholars of women’s basketball.

UConn dominated the rebound stats 53-32 and torched the Tar Heels 88-58 to remain perfect at 18-0. North Carolina (17-1) suffered its first loss of the season.

“We played 17 games but this one was nothing like those others,” UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “They came into our house and showed us how to play basketball. It was never going to be a game if we didn’t rebound any better than we did.”

The Huskies went on a 9-0 run early in the game and had answers the rest of the way to counter any threat the Tar Heels attempted to toss.

North Carolina’s only positive statistic of the night in the Smith Center was an all-time attendance figure of 12,722.

The Tar Heels are using the more spacious men’s arena this season while their own Carmichael Auditorium is undergoing renovations.

In the home state of NASCAR, speed was a major factor from both teams which enjoy to zoom up and down the court.

“I think we surprised them a little,” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said. “They’re fast. But we’re pretty fast also.”

The Huskies are also resilent.

Two days removed from a major roster loss when Germantown Academy’s Caroline Doty’s freshman season was cut short by a knee injury, Lorin Dixon stepped into the backcourt as a starter and kept the Huskies on the move.

“What can you say about a kid whose season has ended,” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said of Doty’s second knee injury in two seasons including her senior high school year.

“You can’t. You put your arm around her and then you move on.”

Dixon was inserted as a starter a year ago when former senior guard Mel Thomas was hurt,

But she conceded her confidence level was much higher against the Tar Heels than her first start 12 months ago.

“I was like a deer in the headlights,” Dixon recalled last year’s situation after scoring 14 points and dealing six assists against UNC.

“After Caroline went down I was thinking as a team we just have to regroup and pull together,” Dixon said. “Now teams are going to think we have a weakness and just attack us. It was important that we all come together and just say we’re going to handle this the best we can and just work on our strengths.

“Caroline is a great three-point shooter,” Dixon continued. We’re just going to have to find a way to work around that.”

All five Connecticut starters scored in double figures with senior Renee Montgomery getting a game-high 21 points. The senior guard has a chance to be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft considering Atlanta, which owns the pick, is believed to be looking for backcourt help from the senior collegiate class.

Sensational sophomore Maya Moore had an off night and still finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Tina Charles earned a double double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

North Carolina’s Italee Lucas had a team-high 15 points, while Rashanda McCants scored 13 points, and Jessica Breeland scored 10.

Hatchell praised the Huskies, saying, “They compete hard and they are extremely physical. This game was much, much more physical than any game we played this year and I think it bothered us, it got to us.

“But this is the way a game is going to be when you get into the NCAA (tournament) and play for a national championship.”

Connecticut’s players were prepared from the opening tip to set the tone of the marquee matchup.

“Our coaches told us whoever controls the paint is going to win the game and I think our post players took it to heart,” Montgomery said.

“Every night we need to prove ourselves because every night someone’s going to come out and have their best game and walk away feeling they did something good,” Montgomery said. “So every night we just come in with a mindset we have to play really well, especially coming in to play the No. 2 team in the country.

“I think we really came in focused.”

--Mel

By Mel Greenberg

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Caroline Doty, the former Germantown Academy star who suffered a second knee injury Saturday playing for top-ranked Connecticut, is set to have surgery Thursday.

“That’s what we’re looking at,” Doty said here about the injury prior to Monday’s night’s major showdown between the Huskies and No. 2 North Carolina at the Smith Center.

“Right now I’m excited for the game, excited for the team to see what we have here to give to North Carolina,” Doty said to reporters from the team bench an hour before tipoff.

The freshman, who had started all 17 games for the Huskies, went down right before the half Saturday during the Huskies’ lop-sided win over Syracuse.

Doty, one of the top five high school prospects in the nation a year ago, missed her senior season in basketball when she suffered an ACL injury during a soccer match in the fall of 2007 with Germantown Academy.

“The past couple of days have been kind of like a roller coaster, but I’m trying to stay as positive as possible,” Doty said. “Just the fact that it happened kind of brings me down sometimes.

“But the coaches and my teammates have been doing a good job of keeping my spirits up.”

The injury Saturday was on the same left knee as the one suffered last season.

“My ACL is gone, it’s completely torn,” Doty said. “But it’s different because I didn’t tear any other ligaments. It feels a lot better (than last time). I can walk, but not normally, but with a limp.”

Doty, who had connected on 5-of-11 three-pointers for 17 points, knew right away what had happened when she went to the floor and grabbed her knee, although there was no contact on the play.

“Oh yeah,” Doty said. “I felt it click.

“I was thinking, `Not again.’ The feeling was just too familiar. And knowing that we were just getting to fun part of the season. I knew we had this game. Just a million, million thoughts ran through my head – just disappointed.”

Doty’s parents, her grandparents, and her twin brother were all at Saturday’s game when she became sidelined.

Despite the injury, Doty said she had to be here to support her teammates.

“Just because it’s 1 vs. 2. I know it’s a huge game for my teammates – for the women’s program and I wanted to be here to support them as much as I could.”

Doty said the surgery will happen much earlier than when she underwent the medical procedure for her previous injury.

“I’ll rehab. Go to classes and be as much as part of the team as I can,” Doty said.

Doty spoke of her emotions that ran through her Saturday night hours after she got hurt.

“It was tough,” she said. “Especially after the hard preseason we had gone through. The Big East had just started and everyone was saying how the Big East time is a huge, huge part of the season. It’s fun.

“I was looking (ahead) to the Big East tournament. I was looking to this game. I was looking to the NCAA tournament. I was looking to everything in the future,” Doty continued.

“Then again, I have three more years. I’m still young. I still have a lot of time to play.”

Doty has little doubt that Connecticut will continue to succeed and win the NCAA title everyone has projected for the Huskies despite the reduction in depth and outside shooters on the roster.

“We have so many great leaders,” Doty said. “They’re all so high-spirited. They felt for me. They all came to my room when I got back (after the postgame examination at the hospital). They all brought me cakes. They all brought me hugs – just moral support.

“Having that I know they’re going to come out here as hard as they can and try to pull out the “W.”

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

VILLANOVA, Pa. _ An array of Villanova women’s basketball players from some of the great and not-so-great teams of the previous 30 years participated Saturday in the annual alumnae game at the Pavilion.

Then it was time for the Wildcats star of the present to do her thing.

Laura Kurz once again delivered, connecting on two foul shots at the finish to give Villanova a 54-52 victory over West Virginia in the Big East.

It was an improbable victory for the Wildcats (10-7, 7-2 Big East), who trailed the depleted Mountaineers (11-6, 0-4) by 13 points early in the second half.

West Virginia, which is now 0-12 lifetime at Villanova, is down to eight players because of injuries and illness.

“It was an ugly game, but we did what you have to do in the Big East – pull it out in the end,” Kurz said. “West Virginia played really great in the first half but we were able to make some adjustments. Our shots started to fall. We were making better passes and we weren’t turning the ball over as much.”

Kurz, a former Germantown Academy star whose collegiate career began at Duke, had a game-high 17 points as the only Wildcat scoring in double figures.

Takisha Granberry had a team-high 16 points for the Mountaineers.

Villanova had possession in the final moments when West Virginia’s Ashley Powell appeared to go for a steal and fouled Kurz with five seconds left in regulation.

“This conference is unbelievable once you get below (top-ranked) Connecticut,” Villanova coach Harry Perretta said. “Every game is life and death like this one.”

The game seemed to be a montage of everything the former players experienced in Perretta’s three decades on the Main Line.

“This game had all of that – bad play, good play, close game, rally, everything you could ask for was in one game.”

-- Mel_

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

Legendary Georgia coach Andy Landers recorded his 800th win as a head coach this evening when the Lady Bulldogs beat Savannah State, 74-28, in Athens.

718 of those wins have come at Georgia, while the first 82 came during the 1970's at Roane State Community College in Harriman, Tenn., according to the AP story linked above.

Overall, Landers' career record is 800-252 in 33-plus seasons. He is the fifth women's basketball coach to reach the 800-win mark, following Sylvia Hatchell, Pat Summitt, C. Vivian Stringer and Jody Conradt.

You all probably also remember that Landers was a member of the 2007 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame class that included one Mel Greenberg. I got a chance to meet Landers when in Knoxville for the induction ceremonies that summer; not that he would remember me, but it's nice to be able to say that.

Thinking back to that weekend, I dug around in the blog's archives a bit and came across a photo of Andy and Mel that seems appropriate to post tonight. I'll finish with that, and a guess that Mel will have more to say about all of this later on.

(Guru’s note: This is a combination of the Temple-Rhode Island and Villanova-Rutgers game with the raw copy for print for both games because space considerations in the sports section will feature only one game as the lede with the night game having replaced the Temple afternoon game.)

Temple Sizzles in A-10 Win Over Rhode Island

By Mel Greenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Temple got things done the easy way for a change Wednesday by cruising to a 95-48 victory over Rhode Island in an Atlantic Ten matinee game at the Liacouras Center.

A School Day crowd of 1,470 saw a balanced attack in which all five starters scored in double figures, three of them setting career highs.

Lindsay Kimmel had a team-high 22 points, while Shenita Landry and Kristen McCarthy each added 19 points. Landry also grabbed 11 rebounds and McCarthy grabbed 10.

LaKeisha Eaddy added 12 points and Shanea Cotton scored 10 for Temple (10-5, 2-0 A-10).

Lindsay Harris was the sole player in double figures for Rhode Island (7-9, 0-1), scoring 12 points.

In several instances, Temple first-year coach Tonya Cardoza was able to relive her days as an assistant with powerful Connecticut where routs are commonplace.

“You had trouble finding something to yell (at halftime) about to the players,” she said with a smile after the game. “Today was an unbelievable day for us. I’m shocked at how well we performed. It’s something we talked about – playing 40 minutes of good basketball.”

The game was decided so quickly – the Owls bolted to a 21-4 lead -- that the only elements of suspense was over whether Temple could break a team record for shooting three-pointers or could the Owls hit the century mark on the scoreboard.

Temple fell just short of the three-point mark, sizzling on 11-of-21 attempts.

Kimmel was exceptionally hot matching her career high beyond the arc on a 6-for-11 effort.

“One of the big things with Lindsay is she has opportunities, but today she was a little more focused. oday she shot them knowing they were going in. And her teammates did a good job finding her.”

As for the 100-point plateau, Cardoza explained that certain manners are required in becoming a head coach.

“When I was an assistant coach and whenever you had an opportunity to score a 100 points, as an assistant coach we were always, `Yeah, let’s get 100.’

“But as a head coach that is something you don’t want to do. If it ever happens within the flow of the game, that’s different. But you don’t want to ever embarrass your opponent.”

Villanova Empties Bag of Tricks Too Early Against No. 23 Rutgers

By Mel Greenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Villanova women’s basketball coach Harry Perretta has pulled a few stunning upsets out of his hat in his 31 seasons on the Main Line.

The magician, however, admitted he ran out of tricks Wednesday night at the Pavilion when No. 23 Rutgers pulled away in the final minutes on a 9-0 run to a 60-51 victory in the Big East Conference.

“To be honest, we used every special play we had between the 10 minute mark and the five minute mark,” Perretta said. “They worked and we were able to get some easy baskets but the problem is they only work once.

“We usually try not to use use those plays until we get under five or four minutes, but I just felt when we were down seven (points) and nine, we had to try to do something to get an easy basket.”

Laura Kurz had 12 of her team high 19 points for the Wildcats (9-7, 1-2 Big East) in the second half. Lisa Karcic also scored in double figures with 15 points.

Epiphanny Prince continued to be the princess of the Rutgers offense with as game-high 29 points that included 7-of-14 baskets from the field, including 3-of-5 on three-point attempts.

She also was a perfect 12-for-12 on free throw attempts.

Equally important, Prince took the game over, scoring 12 of the final 18 points for the Scarlet Knights (9-5, 1-2).

Khadijah Rushdan, a graduate of St. Elizabeth High in Wilmington who missed most of her freshman season last year because of a knee injury, grabbed 10 rebounds.

The Wildcats trailed early in the game at 19-5 before closing the gap to 32-23 at the end of the first half.

Villanova drew even closer when Rutgers missed its first seven shots in the second half and eventually grabbed a 47-46 lead on Heather Scanlon’s three-pointer with 7:20 left in the game.

An upset still seemed realistic when Karcic’s trey tied the game at 51-51 with 3:35 left.

But Prince countered with a trey of her own and Villanova was shut down the rest of the way.

Rutgers snapped a three-game losing streak as Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian

Stringer used a four-guard lineup with center Kia Vaughn.

Reluctant to play newcomers against the likes of Villanova, Nikki Speed was the only freshman to see action until near the end of the game when she was replaced by another freshman in Brooklyn Pope.

The other four starters played all 40 minutes and Pope was replaced in the last minute by senior Heather Zurich, who had been a starter in the past.

“We did it out of necessity,” Stringer said of her strategy. “I didn’t think that there would be many people that would play because of who they (Villanova) are.”

Stringer was pleased in her team making just 11 turnovers and everyone playing their roles as she desired.

“I’m still trying to find out what makes us tick,” Stringer said. “What is the lineup, what is the Scarlet Knights. What do we look like. Who are we.”

Guru's update: No one pointed it out to him, but the Guru in a moment of clarity realized he overlooked his notes on the Mountain West which are now inserted.

By Mel Greenberg

Hello all. As conference races have gotten under way in this year of a multiude of upsets in the first two months, here is an early skinny as to who needs to do what.

As you begin looking at this bear in mind much can change. Some teams being called locks now could play themselves out and others can play their way in by the time we get to the mock bracket in February.

But looking at data, records and performance, the tried to create a core group of field contenders without regards to automatic bids. There is a chance that the committee will get lucky and actually get a break point at 64th pick or fall four or five short and then have a slew of teams that will have to be compared against each other.

Let's begin with first identifying the conferences which need no further discussion because they project as automatic bid winners, although within the race in those places a donnybrook will occur and in many cases, the regular season chamo may not be the tournament champ.

If that occurs, the only teams seem worthy of at-large rescue on this date are Marist in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Confernce, South Dakota State in the Summit League, and Middle Tennessee in the Sun Belt.

Assuming they all win - thereby no longer considered in the vote for 33 at-lage slots -- the other one-team only leagues are: America East (Hartford faded after the Duke upset), Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Conference USA, Horizon, Ivy, Mid-American, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southland, Southern, Southwestrn Athletic, Western Athletic, and West Coast.

Additionally, the Colonial Athletic Association may be in this group, but right now the Guru's eye is on both Old Dominion and Virginia Commonwealth, which takes care of that discussion.

As for the rest here we go:

Atlantic Coast -- North Carolina, Duke, Maryland and Virginia in the tournament. On this date, North Carolina and Duke would be considered for one seeds, at worst two. Maryland would be in the 2-3 group and Virginia perhaps 3-4.
Boston College, Florida State and Georgia Tech are not much behind and likely to get picked. They strengthen their cases for seeds on how they fare against the four mentioned and among themselves while avoiding losses to the rest of the conference. Conversely, those teams get into the mix with wins against these teams and no losses among themselves.

Atlantic Ten -- There could be multiples and maybe not. The conference race will say much but today Xavier is probably in with eyes on Richmond and Temple. George Washington is going to have make a deep run while Dayton and Charlotte know what they have to do against this group to become factors.

Big 12 -- The dynamic is the same as the Atlantic Coast with many teams in play but remember this is based on right now. Baylor, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Iowa State, Texas, and Oklahoma are in the tournament with Oklahoma State and Texas Tech also likely. The rest of the conference needs some wins against these teams and no losses among themselves. Baylor and Oklahoma are in the 1-2 talks, Texas A&M in the 2-3.

Big East -- Connecticut -- maybe we should stop this post with the mere mention of the Huskies -- Louisville and Notre Dame are in. The other two on this date are in discussions for very high seeds. Rutgers is probably in on the asumption things will get better but the damage to date will result in lower seeds unless the Scarlet Knights can get to the upper group without too many more losses without regard to the two Connecticut games.
Some others will probably make the field, also, perhaps Syracuse in the crowd. And the crowd is such that it is not worth identiying names -- some fare better against similar contending NCAA teams in other conferences then they do among themselves. Clarity will develop the next few weeks or it will get even messier.

Big Ten -- Ohio State and Wisconsin are in the tournament and Purdue, also likely. This conference, once one of the very best, can't be discussed further until some pecking order develops over the next few weeks. It can be said there are a few teams who won't make but would in an entire at-large tournament that would eliminate the required automatic bid leagues mentioned at the top of this discussion.

Mountain West -- New Mexico and Texas Tech in the tournament with BYU and Utah, despite a low RPI, on the radar because of the competitiveness oif the conference,

Pacific Ten -- Stanford and California are in the tournament with Stanford potentially backing into a one seed-- depending on the other power conference results. Arizona State is probably in and UCLA is on the radar. The rest know what they have to do.

Southeastern -- Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Auburn, and probably Florida are in the tournament. LSU could get there but will need some upsets and be the best of the group if the four mentioned finish that way. Georgia needs some key conference wins to become a factor.
Tennessee has some games left that could get the Vols back into discussion for the highest seed, but as of now they would land in a place in which they could be dangerous as an underdog by seed at the end of the regular season.
The lack of the annual Connecticut game destroys a chance to have something of value in the resume to offset the earlier upsets. The Huskies would be a big favorite in the contest, but on this date the opportunity to reverse that forecast would still exist.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

It was the Guru's intention to use this space to begin looking at who's done what heading into the start of conference races so it can be forecasted who needs to do what in the next two months in terms of the NCAA tournament.

But in consideration that Sunday offers some key matchups at the outset in different places the Guru decided to wait another 24 hours.

That offers the opportunity to once again let you along for the ride at the very beginning with an eye to what will be a second annual attempt by media and select coaches to participate on Feb. 5-6 at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis simulating the tournament committee experience in seletion and placement of the 64-team field.

Already, the dynamics are much different than a year ago when seven teams had quickly separated themselves from the rest of the nation leaving about three to fight for the eighth spot.

Ultimately, it played out that way in reality a month later although some seeds changed -- Rutgers, for example, losing to Louisville in the Big East tournament cost the Scarlet Knights a No. 1 seed and helped caused the collision with conference rival Connecticut in the Greensboro Regional.

And the controversial matchup with Tennessee involving the clock at the finish had yet to occur but would have been a major discussion had it been in the history books at the time of our gathering.

This time as we look at St. Louis toward the 1+3, er, Final Four, the landscape is wide open, so much so that it will take a few weeks before submitting advance ballots to pick 33 at-large teams without regard to how they may ultimately finish in their conference races.

Obviously, eventual winners with automatic bids go directly to the field of 64 and off the at-large board.

Also, although there was not time to go deep in the placement a year ago, we are now looking at the first two rounds in terms of 16 sites, as opposed to eight the past several seasons.

A year ago, three prominent former coaches -- Marsha Sharp, Joe Ciampi, and Theresa Grentz -- were panel members.

This time that category will be filled by former Colorado coach Ceal Barry, who undoubtedly will be asking the Guru the status of Kate Fagan, her former star point guard who is now the 76ers beat writer in the Guru's home office after her hire last spring.

Four current coaches will be involved, however, this time -- Texas A&M's Gary Blair, Oklahoma's Sherri Coale, who is also president of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association; DePaul's Doug Bruno, and Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw.

Given past reactions to situations involving their teams on selection day, this will also cause a rare mix of whine with wine at dinner. But it also sets up a Big 12-Big East challenge, with ESPN.com's Mechelle Voepel returning and in position to break deadlocks. (A little Big 12 inside humor there.).

The AP's Doug Feinberg, who will return, already noted to the Guru, who conveyed the consideration to real chair Jacki Silar on our recent visit to Duke, that in regard to coaches on hand whose teams will obviously be discussed at all levels, they should be made to leave the room when their particular team is deliberated as what occurs on the real committee.

Other coaches were invited but had to decline given their particular team's schedule.

Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer was one such invitee, but given her sometime lengthy precision on matters in postgame press conferences it is probably just as well considering the shorter time frame in the mock bracket exercise.

(A little Guru humor there, you know we love you coach.).

Already, in another change, there have been some advance assignments given as to which participants are responsible for personally tracking which conferences.

In terms of the rest of the group, the WBCA will be represented by Beth Bass and the ever-present Betty Jaynes.

The podcast sisters: Debbie Antonelli and Beth Mowins will be among a rather large ESPN group that includes Charlie Creme, the bracketmeister who will want to make sure we match his ongoing projections; Nancy Lieberman, Josh Osborne, Holly Rowe, Laura Sandillo, Voepel, and Carol Stiff.

Amy Farnum Novin of NCAA.com will be on hand. The print group will include yours truly, who oversees the women's wing of the United States Basketball Writers Association; Fenberg, USA Today's Dick Patrick, and Stu Durando of the tournament host city St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Based on the makeup -- the low number of print people yet another reflection of the state of newspapers these days in terms of travel - one can envision much debate once the field is established.

A year ago in this excercise as the first seed attempt went on the board, the Guru made an aside to Voepel noting how he couldn't wait for her to blast herself for the result the way she has had some taken exceptions previously to seed and placement.

This time forget about coaches complaining about their teams. Given the 9-4 advantage ESPN has over print on the committee, the Guru could expect many phone calls from colleagues on the beat of individual teams moaning that the field was designed to offset the ESPN expenses for transporting trucks and personnel to the various sites.

And holding the votes and with an eye to ratings, Voepel has already alluded to such fun reunion matchups as Duke-Texas, Tennesee-UConn, and Purdue-Tech to name a few. If South Carolina and Temple both make our field of 64, well, enough said. Maybe the NCAA can put them on the advance list as wrong conference winners such as they did a year ago with situations to throw monkey wrenches into the process as they occur for real in March.

Since part of this is all fatansy, if we get Delaware as a wrong-winner, the Guru would try to match the Blue Hens early with Connecticut to encourage you know you, as she is known in Hartford, to come out of youthful retirement.

Actually, the Guru is checking eligibility situations to see if three UConn teams from earlier eras can be inserted into the other regions. All would get to St. Louis, but at least the current Huskies could face a tougher challenge from several of their own.

Given the site location in the East, some print media strapped for cash will be happy to follow their schools deep in the tournament to the Trenton Regional -- an easy train or auto ride -- even if the placement causes short circuits to any of the three teams who will be in the same group as Connecticut.

But the Huskies' appearance always cause the most media entertainment away from the court. The Guru is already scouting restaurants.

As to the advance assignments, the Guru has been paired with the NCAA's Amy Farnum Novin responsible for tracking the Atlantic 10, Atlantic Coast, Northeast, and Patriot League. Secondary assignments are the Big East, Ivy League, and Southwestern Athletics Conference -- Hey, the Guru has already seen Prairie View A&M.

In a sense, the Guru automatically will play the role of a committee person in that his assigned conferences are in his coverage area -- such as Sunday's St. Joseph's-Temple game in town that will be a key Big Five battle along with the Atlantic Ten debut of new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza.

We'll be back on this topic as we near the date.

Riding Along with Debbie & Beth

So in a phone coversation the other week with Debbie Antonelli, the Guru was asked if he had ever listened to the podcast featuring herself and Beth Mowins, and the Guru couldn't answer in the affirmative other than he enjoyed the "live" broadcasts at the Final Four last year and at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inductions last spring.

However, while doing some music downloads -- it isn't all basketball and play -- the other night, the Guru remembered the conversation and popped into the ITunes podcast section and grabbed the duo's recent comentary.

He then slipped the file into one of his Ipods -- not to be confused with one of his blackberries --l and plugged it into the car radio to listen while making some stops in the neighborhood.

They were great and it sounded like one of those oldtime morning radio conversations, given the makeup of the audio system -- ain't technology wonderful when it works.

So this is your shout-out from this site and the Guru looks forward to the next podcast.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - There are a myriad of options available in one's first seven minutes after arriving here in the campus town of the Universiy of Maryland.

One can sit at a busy intersection near the Washington I-495 Beltway on Baltimore Ave. waiting for a traffic light to change.

Or one can spend the small amount of time deliberating whicfh of the fine eateries to dine for a pre-game meal.

Or one can catch up on the latest local news here from our friends running the D.C. Basket Cases web site.

Or one can quickly enter the Comcast Center home of the Terrapins to view the shrine created honoring the NCAA championships of the men's and women's basketball teams.

In the case of Wake Forest University, which had been unbeaten until the previous 45-33 loss at Richmond Tuesday night, the Demon Deacons chose to do absolutely nothing.when it came to the opening of their Atlantic Coast Conference schedule against No. 14 Maryland.

By the time Brittany Waters connected with a three-pointer Thursday night one second after the aforementioned lapse of time with 12:59 left in the first half, the Deacons needed more than a few prayers to overcome what had been a 20-0 deficit.

And as witnessed Saturday at Rutgers, apparently Tennessee is one of the few to have prayers answered when down by double decade numbers.

Unlike the nationally-televised contest on the weekend, this one featured a rout by the same team in both halves -- although the 46-37 Terrapin advantage in the second half was a bit more competitive for a while than the lopsided 46-28 differential compiled in the first 20 minutes.

"It was fool's gold," Wake Forest coach Mike Petersen said of the way the action went after the opening salvo by Maryland (13-2). "Teams ahead 20-0 play differently than teams involved in a 10-10 game.

"The biggest thing was our offense at the start of the game," Petersen continued after an opening in which he offered to discuss issues of the day outside women's basketball. "You're not going to stop Maryland from scoring - that's what they do. We had zero push to our offense. That's not us."

Air power was definitely lacking from beyond the arc where the Terrapins shot 13-for-27 on three points attempt compared to a 7-for-23 effort by Wake Forest (12-2). which is holding a No. 25 ranking in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll.

Kristi Toliver was the top Terrapin in that category shooting 4-for-8 on the way to a game-high 22 points. Freshman Lynetta Kizer wowed from the inside with 17 points, while Marah Strickland scored 12. Maryland also got double digit scoring from Drey Mingo and Marissa Coleman with 10 points each. Demauria Liles grabbed 13 rebounds.

Corinne Groves scored 17 points for the Deacons, with Brooke Thomas and Camille Collier scoring 12 points each. Alex Tchangoue added 11 points.

In some fairness to Wake Forest, Petersen's team has made a change at point guard with Thomas, a freshman, inserted after Tiffany Roulhac suffered a potential season-ending knee injury on Dec. 26.

"She'''ll eventually be fine," Petersen said of his newcomer. "But not now against this," he nodded toward the Terrapin dressing room.

Maryland coach Brenda Frese was obviously pleased considering that the Terrapins next head south to No. 5 Duke, which should be at least a spot higher by the time both teams take the floor in Monday night's nationally-televised contest in the Blue Devils' Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"It's great to see the statement we made today for our first ACC game," Frese said. "What I was really pleased with was our defense. Obviously, to come out and make the statement we made from a defensive end, that just got us clicking on all cylinders. Defense led to offense.

"It was very exciting to see so many new players and how they were going to play in their first ACC game."

Of course, their second ACC game will tell much more about both teams in the earliest phase of the conference schedule.

Prior to the game Wake Forest assistant coach Bob Clark, a native of Philadelphia (now we know the cause of the blog traffic report from Wnston-Salem, N.C.), introduced the Guru to associate head coach Natasha Adair, who was prominently mention by the Guru last spring during the Temple search of which she was a finalist.

Guru's travels. On the way down I-95 he made a slight detour a mile off the highway to visit with his Hofstra friends prior to what became a stirring 62-53 overtime victory at Delaware in a Colonial Athletic Association contest.

The win by the Pride (9-4) continues a dramatic turnaround from last season's 5-25 effort for third-year coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey, who played at North Carolina State.

The loss dropped Delaware (8-5) to 0-2 in conference play after what had been another positive turnaround from last season's 7-24 effort.

The Atlantic Ten's Fordham, which was 0-30 a year ago, is another team making mark progress from a year ago.

Meanwhile, no one is knocking on Delaware volleyball freshman Elena Delle Donne's door with a help wanted sign to urge her to return to the sport of her high school acclaim.

But the Guru is hearing reports of alumnae scattered around the CAA from Wilmington's Ursuline Academy where Delle Donne starred suggesting that she could be in a Blue Hens basketball uniform next season.

However, it could just be wishful thinking.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

At mid-afternoon on Saturday Rutgers held a 23-point lead on Tennessee and was dominating into halftime.

If the performance at that moment was a glimpse of the future through the rugged Big East, there was a lot one could legitimately dream in terms of the NCAA committee's deliberations in March.

A No. 2 seed could become a reality, though it would be helpful to be a weak No. 2 to avoid Connecticut in the same region. Even a No. 1 could come into play depending on how the crush shakes out by the time conference play concludes.

After all, a win over Tennessee certainly enhances a profile in any year and helps separate one from others in an upward movement when teams are being slotted.

But a nationwide audience saw the meltdown and now on Tuesday night an upset loss at Syracuse followed to start conference play.

That setback sets the stage for more nightmare thoughts than dreams.

Things won't be as bad as what happened three years ago when normal short-bet Penn State got a first-round site and never made the tournament.

But with more bumps expected the nature of those rough spots will determine much.

The loss to the Orange basically conceded the Big East regular season title to UConn in that the Scarlet Knights needed to be unbeaten when the first of the two matchups between the 1-2 preseason picks occurs early next month.

Now, it would take a perfect run including a sweep of the Huskies to get the top seed in the conference tournament. The problem is more rough sailing before the ship rights itself -- and that should happen eventually, shouldn't it -- could cost a Big East bye.

The good news is that as powerful as the conference is, Rutgers could get lots of help from a free-for-all in the next two months if the Scarlet Knights take care of their own business.

The other good news is that Rutgers will still be at home to start the NCAAs no matter what their tournament seed.

But losing to Syracuse is the equivalent to losing to a middle of the upper pack seed in the postseason.

In that regard, keep in mind that if Rutgers is only a No. 3, a No. 6 will be at the RAC and the way the national scene is playing out at the moment, there are a lot of teams that could land in that spot and cause trouble.

A No.4 seed brings a No. 5, which means an even tougher opponent.

A No. 5 or No. 6 and Rutgers becomes an inherent underdog in its own house.

On the other hand, even though it could take longer than two years ago to operate smoothly, one could recall the words of Geno Auriemma last season.

"Rutgers is not the team you want to play in March, especially in the tournament."

If that becomes reality again, one can just take a deep breath and consider all the miscues of the moment as Rutgers shooping at the shoe store to find the best pair of Cinderella slippers available.

Penn On The Rebound -- Again

Following Penn's tough loss to La Salle at the finish in The Palestra Monday night, which conversely was a great win for the Explorers, Quakers coach Pat Knapp left some reaction on the Guru's phone while the Guru was in the air Tuesday returning from North Carolina.

"Yeah, it was very, very tough," Knapp said of the loss. "I thought the game was in our hands. We didn't play well enough to win. It was a combination of a lack of aggressiveness on our part on offense and some inexperience out front in the guard spot with Sarah Bucar being out.

"And certainly La Salle made some big shots," Knapp said. "We have to take our experiences of getting that far and turn the corner. So now it's time to move on to Princeton."

The Quakers begin play in the Ivy League Saturday on the road against the Tigers.

Meanwhile Knapp's father suffered a hip injury during the Temple game at The Palestra Friday night when a youngster running in the aisle way didn't see him and knocked him over.

Knapp said the surgery went well, his father is strong and there are no complications but it will be a long recovery period.

-- Mel

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

You might have seen it already, but the AP is reporting that North Carolina State coach Kay Yow will not return this season as she continues her fight against breast cancer.

From the story:

In a statement released by the school Tuesday afternoon, the Hall of Fame coach said she just doesn't have the energy to coach the way she always has before. She has missed the past four games.

Yow said she will revisit the decision no later than the end of the season.

As Mel has said, everyone over here wishes Yow all the best in her fight, and we hope and pray that she wins it once and for all.

(Guru's note: A game story from Duke for print to lead the women's roundup is at Philly.com)

By Mel Greenberg

DURHAM, N.C. - Remember two weeks ago when things came together all over the planet to help the Eagles land a playoff berth. The home team routed Dallas and got help elsewhere with great comebacks.

Temple sort of had the same thing happen in reverse Monday night at Duke.

The Owls got routed, 87-52, by the No. 5 Blue Devils, who will probably move up to No. 4 next week.

Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie was pleased that her squad finally was able to dominate all the way as opposed to some previous games that go beyond her arrival from Michigan State last year.

"This was the first time we dominated them," McCallie said.

Asked if she had some areas of concern facing the Owls, McCallie responded, saying,

"They do so many nice things; I had tremendous concerns about their inside game with (Shanea) Cotton and (Shenita) Landry. I was very concerned about those two as seniors and players who are very comfortable. I was very concerned about (Lindsay Kimmel) as an outside and very pleased that she didn’t get open or get access to really be effective there. You treat every opponent exactly the same, and we were very prepared for Temple.”

Unfortuately for the Owls, the game was witnessed by Duke senior women's adminstrator Jacki Silar who is also the chairwoman of the NCAA tournament committee.

Fortunately, she also watched Temple's performance against Rutgers last month.

Meanwhile back home in Philadelphia some of sting down here was in being alleviated with the news that Penn was on the verge of beating La Salle in a Big Five game.

That was going to be helpful in terms of the Temple possibly still being a stand-alone champion, but with one loss, which is usually a rarity in the final standings.

Then the Guru's blackberry was hit simultaneously from La Salle and Penn that Ashley Gale hit a three-pointer at the buzzer and that La Salle scored the last 12 points to win the game.

That cost Temple's outright chances if the Guru has the match deduced correctly.

Someone should give a tarnished trophy for Penn and Villanova to share at the postseason dinner. Either the Wildcats or Quakers with a few extra minutes and points could have been unbeaten champions. Villanova finished 1-3 with the one being an upset of Temple that ended the Owls' 18-game City Series record win streak. Penn was 0-4 being in every contest as opposed to a year ago when the Quakers were crushed in all four games. They have now lost 17 straight.

All this does is make Temple's visit to Philadelphia University Sunday to play St. Joseph's a key game as the start of the Atlantic Ten schedule and also in the Big Five race.

St. Joseph's and La Salle are both 2-0 and can win outright with a sweep.

For Temple to share a title, the Owls need to beat the Hawks and La Salle to finish 3-1 while piling up Atlantic Ten wins at the same time.

Then whoever wins between La Salle and St. Joseph's in the final Big Five game in February would share the crown with the Owls at 3-1.

The Voting Gap

For the first time there is an unusually wide differential between teams ranked in the Associated Press women's poll and the coaches poll that is sponsored by ESPN and USA Today through the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.

Now in this particular year it could be hard to see which group will be proven right in their deliberations.

But the Guru has heard whispers from a few coaches not on the voting board questioning how teams are getting ranked on that side of the aisle.

The Guru has responded, it is not his area of concern but said he would mention it just to note the discussion has taken place.

Things could still sort themselves out in conference play and maybe not.

Wake Forest, for example, has a great record. How great?

That will be answered with a visit to Maryland Thursday night.

Thats it for now.

We'll be back in the next 24 after we return home.

(Guru's note: A print story off the game with focus on ailing North Carolina State coach Kay Yow is over at philly.com)

By Mel Greenberg

RALEIGH, N.C. - South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley, who left a successful eight-year stint at Temple to revive the Gamecocks' functions, still thinks much of her native Philadelphia far from home.

On Sunday, after a win over South Carolina at the buzzer for Staley's first triumph over North Carolina State in four tries as a coach, Staley sent a cheer for the Eagles prior to their playoff win over Minnesota to advance in the NFL playoffs.

"Overall, we're taking steps in the right direction," Staley said of her new life in Columbia. "We're trying to get better and we did that today."

Then, she paused and a grin crept over her face.

"Now, we have to get the Eagles on board."

It was then pointed out to her that the Phillies finally won a world series after she left town.

"I was glued to it. I was glued to it," Staley said.

Meanwhile as the fates evolved, Staley's former Temple team watched part of the action of its previous coach in Reynolds Coliseum before heading to nearby Durham where the Owls will meet Duke Monday night. The Blue Devils should be at least No.5 in a few hours from this writing in the new poll in the wake of No. 4 Texas' loss to San Diego State last week.

Duke Homecoming

When Temple takes the floor in Cameron Indoor Stadium Monday night against Duke it will be a homecoming of sorts for assistant coach Brittany Hunter, who once was the nation's top recruit as a Blue Devils freshman.

Her arrival was a major triumph at the time in that Connecticut was a runnerup in the hunt for her talents.

She then unmwittingly touched off a mild firestorm when the Huskies were about to play the Blue Devils in a 1-2 matchup that season.

Asked by the UConn media contingent what was a deciding factor in her choice of schools, Hunter alluded to the value of a Duke diploma later in life.

In an ensuing interview with Huskies coach Geno Auriemma on his reaction, he quipped about the number of persons holding Duke diplomas he knew who were waiting on tables in restaurants.

He got the final say, however, when Hunter later decided to transfer to UConn, where she graduated last season and was brought to Temple as an aide to Tonya Cardoza, who had been a longtime assistant with the Huskies.

Hunter, in a preseason interview at Temple, said, like Dawn Staley, coaching was not a thought in her future as a player.

"It's funny," she said. "I didn't remember having interest before Tonya asked me to join her. But I remember talking to (former Connecticut star) Shea Ralph, once, and she told me she wasn't thinking of a coaching career, either, when she was an undergraduate."

Ralph, however, was an assistant to Agnus Berenato, helping to build Pittsburgh into prominence, before Auriemma then coaxed her back to her alma mater to fill Cardoza's spot on his staff.

Rutgers Fallout

If New Jersey transportation officials ever finish widening Route 18 near the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, the improvement will be worthy.

It will put the fan base that much closer to the Raritan River on the way home after excruciating losses such as the one Saturday in the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center to national rival Tennessee.

The Scarlet Knights had led by as many as 23 points in the first half and 20 at the break.

The differential created the worst half in Tennessee's history and the 13 points were the lowest total.

Following last year's controversial loss at the finish in Knoxville when Tennessee benefited from a timer malfunction to beat Rutgers, media types were wondering how many headlines were going to have a new spin: Scarlet Knights Clock Tennessee.

The fan base was quite guiddy at the time although a portion of the sellout crowd was there to cheer for the Vols and coach Pat Summitt, who is nearing 1,000 career victories.

"Write a good headline," one yelled to the Guru as he headed down from the upper press area to the media room.

The Guru, however, wondered whether the lead could hold based on the fact it could have been worse and Rutgers has a history of letting opportunity slip through the Scarlet Knights' fingers.

He already sensed some bad karma, wondering why ushers in the crowd managed to be distributed shirts colored orange for their working attire.

As for the long range implications -- it is now not out of the question that Rutgers could be grouped again with Big East rival Connecticut in a potential NCAA tournament Sweet 16 appearance in Trenton.

That would delight organizing officials but would mean something else to Rutgers coach C.Vivian Stringer after last year's regional title matchup in Greensboro, N.C.

If Connecticut continues to dominate the nation, geographical preference would place the Huskies No. 1 in the Trenton regional.

At this point with so many unknowns, anything could happen to Rutgers that would need a great closing finish, along with a slew of other teams, to get to at least a No. 2 seed.

Ideally, on each line, Rutgers would be better as a weaker No. 2 or No. 3, or No. 4, etc. because under the infamous committee principles and procedures, anyone else in the East on the same line as the Scarlet Knights would then get the dreaded Trenton geographical placement as the stronger seed in that particular group.

The next geographical site closest to Rutgers is down here in North Carolina, which is becoming the Scarlet Knights' second tournament home. Raleigh will be one of the four sites.

But before any of the Rutgers fans start heading into that construction lane on Route 18 near the "banks," it is a long way until the end of the season.

Unlike a year ago when seven teams pretty much had claimed the top two NCAA bracket lines barring a plunge in conference competition, it is quite messy right now.

How messy?

When it came to voting in this week's poll on Sunday night, little consensus existed on what were now two potential open slots in the top 25.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Hello everyone. The Guru is having a major quiet rage moment in that this entry page blew up on him when he tried to append quotes from the email sent by Rutgers off of Friday's session with the Scarlet Knighrs that he was unable to attend due to matters here in Philadelphia that also included coverage of the Temple-Penn game in the previous post.

Mich as the Guru grew up in The Palestra, he does not feel like hanging around in the underbelly of the fabled around for another hour or so to recreate what he just lost.

Those thoughts are safe in the recesses of his mind and when he is in a more serene state 24 hours from now he will give his context on the game in this space after the outcome here.

Meanwhile, here are comments from Rutgers Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer and a few players. They speak for themselves, so to speak.

Basically, the Guru, in tying back to last year's controversial finish, noted that many participants are gone and this is about learning and that perhaps Rutgers gets more in the long run from a win and less from a loss depending how the Scarlet Knights proceed through the Big East.

Tennessee has already been nicked but enough is in front of the Vols in the Southeastern Conference, but not as much as Rutgers in the Big East, to pick up NCAA resume honors along the way.

That said, here are the quotes, which did make it into this template this time, even if the Guru's own intro now exists somewhere among the space junk revolving around the planet.
.
(If he did not think it actually sounded like a good read, the Guru would not be in such a state )

Here's what was said.

Grrrrrr :)

Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer

What can you take away from a 6-0 December:

“They weren’t challenging games. I know we’re getting better. I appreciate that we have an opportunity to play a Tennessee because we can measure ourselves.”

On Tennessee:

“Tennessee is an excellent rebounding team and we’ve done a poor job of that. They’re an extremely aggressive defensive team and we don’t even handle that well at practice.”

On the tough schedule leading up to BIG EAST play:

“We’re going to be tested at the highest levels and what’s good about that is we can measure and know that we’re going to be fine in the BIG EAST or we’re going to have problems.”

On both Rutgers and Tennessee having so much young talent:

“Sometimes you can be so young that you don’t even know what you don’t know. That’s also true of our kids; we don’t know what we don’t know either. In this case, they’re playing. So much of it has to do with your mindset. When Matee (Ajavon) and Essence (Carson) were freshmen they started. They took care of LSU, Tennessee and Texas. Three games in one week, back-to-back-to-back like that and we won all of them. And they were a major part of that. But they were so young that they didn’t even know what they didn’t know. But they had to play and produce. There was no hesitation, no fear, they just played. That’s the difference, it was their mindset.”

What’s it like playing Tennessee:

“For us it’s almost the same because we play Tennessee every year. It’s not like we’re seeing them once every three or four years and we just heard about Tennessee. We’ve been playing them quite a bit, at least I have personally. What it’s like is, a team overcoming the mystique of another team and realizing that it was all in their head in the first place. They were good and everyone knows that they’re good, but you lose when you give them more credit than they deserve. You can’t do any talking; you have to back it up. You do recognize that they are fundamentally sound and they are the best athletes in the country, there’s no question about that but you have to find a way to get it done.”

“I can look at tapes from last year and they’re doing the same things. They just do what they do and they do it well. Some of the patterns they ran for Candice Parker, now they run them for Glory Johnson. The difference may be replacing her with the same kind of quality. Can you really take out a Candice Parker and put in a kid that just got a scholarship. But she has quality people coming in behind her.”

Is this a better team now than when the team returned from the west coast road trip:

“Yes. There’s no question, we are light-years ahead of that. Our challenge is playing the highest level of competition.”

Is the rate of improvement that the team is making satisfactory:

“I’m never satisfied with that. I’m not because we don’t compete well enough against each other. We just need to be competitors in practice. There’s such a thing as having 10 players and there’s such a thing as having 10 competitive players. We are getting better out there, but we have a long way to go.”

Kia Vaughn, Senior Center

Does it strike you that you are playing in a game with two coaching legends:

“They are. Although both of our teams started off slow and we have young players that are actually the majority of the team, everyone knows that regardless of how bad we start off, it’s Vivian Stringer and Pat Summitt’s team’s so obviously they are going to come out and show improvement. Later on is when everyone starts to peak and this is always going to be a good game.”

On how the team has improved since the west coast trip:

“We came from that trip, being a four in my mind to being a six and a half or seven. So we have a long ways to go to get to 10.”

How do you feel about your offensive game:

“I’ve been up and down. I think it was just me wanting to win so bad that I actually shut myself out more. I try hard to get my teammates to learn everything and with that I lost what I should be doing. So I had a conversation with my teammates and I told them to just play hard and I’m going to be who I am.”

“I do as much as I can. If I’m getting double and triple teamed, it’s the whole team. I have to be calm and find them. They have to hit open shots in order for it to come back to me so I can be effective. I can’t score on two or three people. In order for me to be effective, I need my guards to be relaxed and do what they have to do.”

What’s it like this time of year with the extra practice time:

“For me it’s exciting because it’s all about basketball. There’s no school. It helps as an individual because you have extra time to work on your game. And you have extra time to stay here to help your teammates understand here. This is the time I actually get back into game shape. This is when we actually get to bond more.”

Epiphanny Prince, Junior Guard

Has Coach Stringer used the events at last year’s game as motivation for match-up with Tennessee ?

(Stringer took away the team’s practice gear and have them doing their own laundry since Dec. 2)

“She hasn’t been using that. She has been telling us things like ‘we should want to win. The real motivation is that if we win we get our stuff back (laughter).” Question from reporter, what if you don’t win, you don’t get your stuff – gear- back? “We won’t get anything back if we don’t win. This is our real test. This and GW are our real tests, she said. I guess we have a 50, so far. I just want to win. I don’t need any extra motivation, ready to play hard and win.”

Would a Tennessee win motivate you as you begin the BIG EAST schedule?

“It’s very important because it would give us a lot of confidence going into BIG EAST play. We were predicted second in the league and we have already have some very close games that we shouldn’t have. We know that anyone can win on any given day so we want to come in here with a lot of confidence, especially in conference.”

You have a six-game streak, how much better in this team playing?

"The only game that we played very good in was GW (in the six-game win streak).We have played down to competition a lot and we don’t come out to attack teams. We have come out lackadaisical and letting others attack us first. The only team we attacked first was GW. We tried to attack them first both offensively and defensively.”

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - A typical swing in momentum in City Series competition in the home of the Big Five enabled Temple to rally past Penn Friday night for an 81-70 victory in The Palestra that kept the Owls' defense of four straight titles alive.

La Salle and St. Joseph's also have a chance to win the Big Five outright and all three teams have yet to play each other in games that will also count in the Atlantic Ten race.

Friday's victory in The Palestra was the first Big Five win for first-year Temple coach Tonya Cardoza. It came after the Owls (8-4, 1-1 Big Five) had lost at Villanova last month to end a local record 18-game win streak in the Big Five matchups.

Temple was in danger of elimination for all purposes Friday night when the Quakers' Carrie Biemer and Kelly Scott led a perimeter attack combining for 6-for- 9 from beyond the arc in the first half.

The torrid shooting fueled a Penn (3-8, 0-3) run to a 26-12 lead with 10 minutes, 50 seconds left in the half.

Furthermore, Temple center Shanea Cotton, who has been consistently breaking career highs in scoring, was on the bench virtually all of the half after being assessed three personal fouls in less than three minutes after the opening tip.

But the Owls fought back and actually took the lead at 36-34 on newcomer Ranecia Fields' jumper with 20 seconds left in the period.

Penn, however, had final say before time expired on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Beamer.

"It was a big win for us because if we had lost, obviously we would have been out of it, we wouldn't have stood a chance," Cardoza said afterwards. "I told the team before the game that we were going to have to deal with adversity because we were normally going to have to play people that don't play."

Various players are dealingt with injuries and startking point guard LaKeisha Eaddy was sidelined with an ankle sprain.

"I thought 'Rece' stepped in and did a remarkable job," Cardoza said of the native of Palo Alto, Calif., a junior college transfer guard who had been recruited by Cardoza's predecessor Dawn Staley. "For her not to have played all season, and to be in a game like this that wasn't a blowout or anything like that, the fact we're losing and she was the reason we took the lead, I just can't say enough for the job she did."

Fields finished with a career-high 18 points, behind Shenita Landry's team-high 19 points. Cotton, who stayed in the game the second half, finished with 10 points as did BJ Williams.

"We just pulled together as a team," Fields said. "It's not me, alone, definitely not me alone. I just credit my team and definitely the leadership on the floor."

Penn continued to hang tough in the second half, still leading 59-54 with just under eight minutes left in the game.

But then Temple put its athleticism to good use and went ahead 61-59 on Cotton's two free throws with 5:17 left in the game.

The Owls never trailed again, extending their differential in the final minutes.

Biemer finished with a game-high 21 points and Scott scored 19 for the Quakers.

Penn has now lost 17 straight Big Five games dating back to the 2004-05 season after the Quakers took a 2-0 lead. But this time has been exceptionallhy tough.

After being routed in all four games a year ago, Penn has remained alive untl the final minutes in all three games with Monday's visit from La Salle the only remaining Big Five game on the Quakers' schedule.

"To be honest, I don't think we've come up empty," Penn coach Pat Knapp said. "I know the score says that, but I think we're gaining something each time.

"We're playing hard, we're playing together," Knapp said. "I told the team the middle of the second half we started to get outrebounded. It got a little too wild for our taste. We can't do that.

"And the second thing was we made a couple of mistakes on the press, late, and that hurt as well."

As for their shooting prowess, Scott said, "We got open looks and set good screens and came across shooting with confidence."

Biemer noted, "We knew their big players had trouble defending ball screens on the outside and that kind of plaed to our advantage in terms of moving and getting open shots.

"We got lucky on a few, especially that one at the end of the half."

The win was also the first in The Palestra for Temple assistant Dan Durkin, a former Duquesne women's head coach who was a high school teammate of Knapp in the Catholic League.

Temple travels to No. 6 Duke, which will probably be at least one spot higher in the rankings when the Owls take the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C.

The Blue Devils have been scared twice in successive seasons by Temple, especially two years ago when the Owls almost pulled an upset in the second round of the NCAA tournament in nearby Raleigh when Duke was the top seed of the tournament.

"It's a big game but we treat every game the same. We just have to get it done," Landry said.

Ironically, when the Owls land in the Tar Heel State early Sunday afternoon, Staley will be nearby with her new South Carolina squad, which is playing North Carolina State that day in Raleigh.

Wolfpack coach Kay Yow, who has been battling breast cancer, has missed three straight games and it won't be known until sometime before the 2 p.m. tipoff on Sunday whether the Hall of Fame coach has recovered enough energy to return to the sidelines.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Before moving ahead, it’s time to look back at the year of 2008 that officially entered the history books at the stroke of midnight Thursday.

Things have a way of happening around here in the Philadelphia region that big local news is also major national news and so it was again this season.

A year ago Rutgers easily hit both categories to be the top story off the Scarlet Knights’; turnaround run to the NCAA title game and the Don Imus controversy that quickly followed

Rutgers is back on the list again, but not at the very top.

If judging here were viewed from an orbiting satellite, then Candace Parker’s outstanding play as a Tennessee senior and two-time NCAA champion, a WNBA rookie, and a United States Olympic gold medalist, would no doubt stand out.

And her award as the Associated Press female athlete of the year certainly reflects that.

Although the Guru does not want to go through a complete ranking, two stories dominated this blog in terms of readership traffic with many others close at hand in a year that helped set site records.

No. 1 on the list in a photo finish was Dawn Staley’s decision to leave Temple after eight years for a similar head coaching job at South Carolina. Included along the way was the Owls’ search for a successor that ultimately ended with the selection of former Connecticut assistant Tonya Cardoza.

As a package, Temple also goes into the mix at the top for setting a record with four straight 4-0 Big Five titles and an 18-game City Series win streak that was snapped by Villanova several weeks ago.

And because it became part of the Staley story, the move by Father Judge Graduate Joe McKeown to leave a longtime successful coaching stint at Atlantic Ten power George Washington for Big Ten cellar-dweller Northwestern is also included.

If Staley was big news in the collegiate world, a virtual tie at the top came from the high school sector when phenom Elena Delle Donne from Wilmington’s Ursuline Academy made a quick exit from Connecticut and then spent the summer deliberating before returning her scholarship to the Huskies. She then announced she would attend nearby Delaware, but to play volleyball, a sport she took up her senior year in high school,.

Former Immaculata coach Cathy Rush was a local/national story off her long-wished induction to the Naismith Basketball Hall of fame whiel Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, who grew up near Trenton, went into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville.
Former Penn State star Suzie McConnell Serio, currently the Duquesne coach, was also inducted into the women’s hall along with former Wayland Baptist-Tennessee star Jill Rankin-Schneider, referee Patty Broderick, Central Arizona coach Lin Laursen, and former Australian and WNBA star Michele Timms.
Ora Washington, who grew up in Germantown, is part of the next class to be inducted in June.

Also, Rush might soon return to the national limelight in the spring should Our Lady of Victory, the movie about Immaculata’s first national title, finally make its way to movie houses.

As for Rutgers, the Scarlet Knights were involved in the usual combination of fun and controversy.

On the bright side was the arrival of five McDonald’s all-Americans as freshmen, although that number has since been reduced by one. There was the upset of Connecticut at home.That put coach C;. Vivian Stringer’s team in position to become the first-ever to beat successive No. 1 teams.

It should have happened but Rutgers was deprived of a last-minute win over Tennessee in Knoxville when the clock froze for 1.13 seconds in the final moments enabling the Lady Vols to win on the foul line when officials refused to acknowledge the clock failure.

A month later, Rutgers was paired in the same NCAA tournament region with Big East power Connecticut, which beat the Scarlet Knights with a rally in the region title game and advanced to the Final Four for the first time since 2004.

Essence Carson and Matee Ajavon became first-round draft picks in the WNBA as did Maryland’s Crystal Langhorne (Willingboro High) and Laura Harper (Cheltenham).

Marianne Stanley left her assistant coaching job to return to the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks as an assistant. She was replaced by another Hall of Famer in former Texas star Clarissa Davis Wrightsil.

And because he was such an integral part of the women’s program along with the rest of the department, the year ended with the sudden and stunning firing of athletic director Bob Mulcahy III.

Another big story here was the predominately media-attended mock-bracket at NCAA headquarters in which participants in Indianapolis were given all the tools the selection committee uses and simulated the selection and pairing procedures. The Guru here took readers through the process step by step. Another mock session is set for February.

The upper group of top stories would include the United States powering its way to another gold medal at the Beijing games in China.

Meanwhile, in the WNBA, the Detroit Shock turned aside San Antonio to win its third title since 2003. A little set-to broke out between the Shock and Sparks near the end of a game just before the Olympic break that drew attention. The rookie class, headed by Parker, made a major impact. But another team became a casualty of the times – this one beng the charter Houston Comets, winner of the first four WNBA titles.

A continuing story has been the battle of Hall of Fame coach Kay Yow of N.C. State against cancer. Due to low energy levels she has missed her last three games, including the New Year’s victory by the Wolfpack over Georgetown in Raleigh.

We conclude here by saying that in the more important battles of wins and losses in life our New Year's prayers are with coach Yow to rally and make this fight her greatest victory.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

We'll wait until 24 hours from now for a year in review. And we'll wait until next week to preview what's ahead in the race to thje postseason.

And we'll wait for 1.13 seconds to pass before advancing Saturday's Rutgers-Tennessee matchup in Piscataway, N.J. That will even up the extra time we were given in Knoxville a year ago for coverage the last time the two national powers met.

But for now, last weekend's opportunity to pick the new Top 25 was going be easy until it came to filling one vacancy.

Arizona State's loss to Nebraska meant exit time for the Sun Devils. But as for finding a replacement - the landscape was similar to those years in which the chair of the NCAA tournament committee (pick any of them) informs how crowded the field was for picking the last two teams and how difficult was to separate them,

Ditto last week. At one point, Wisconsin would have been an overwhelming choice, given the record and strength of schedule. But, alas, a Big Ten loss to Iowa took them off the board.

As a for a replacement, the Guru went for DePaul, in part because a source close to the governor if Illinois said a seat in the United States senate might be a reward for going with the Blue Demons.

And then there's the possibility that with athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto's presumed ties to the new president of the United States, a perk or two might be available. After all, paybacks should be available for those years served as an outside counsel when Ponsetto chaired the committee.

But tongue-in-cheek comments aside, the Guru went with DePaul because even though they have yet to be observed in person, the Blue Demons seem to have a vibe as a top 25 team at the moment.

It is already a strange year when normal Top 10 powers past and present such as Maryland, Rutgers, Virginia, California (recently) and a few others are in the second group.

The problem for now has previously been stated here -- Most of the teams with superior records don't have schedule strengths to match, while many teams with better schedules have yet to excel.

And there is a belief that most of the nation seems to agree.

Here's the tell-tale sign based on a history of the Guru's association with the poll.

Usually, once unranked schools developed decemt records by now, the campaigning would begin by our friendly sports information contacts at the various schools.

But it is has been unusually quiet on the email front -- on that topic. The flood still arrives on information better suited for media types who can attend a promotional event on a quarter tank of gas.

However, with the growth of the internet, they now have the ability to see data that used to be privy to the Guru and a few others. In other words, as they look around in their own situation, they are seeing a mob with profiles just like them -- and few have a case tho distinguish one from the other.

And it seems the coaching community has also noticed the new dynamic. The two polls have never had as many differences as to where similar teams have been listed in recent weeks.

Now there was a time when an SID might call and whisper they themselves know their team isn't yet ready for a ranking but he or she was taking some heat from the coach to get some attention.

But the coaches are also viewing the same scene, thus also deciding one's case is as good as anyone's else. All of this could begin to sort out over the next month -- but maybe not.

And if it doesn't, this year's mock bracket get-together at NCAA headquarters in early February will be quite fun as well as to the real committee who will again be spectators to our deliberations.

Sudden thoughts and reactions:

Rutgers' win at home on Monday night means it's the first time George Washington has lost a matchup at Christmas time in central New Jersey.

GW had been 1-0 dating back to a win over a military team of British foreigners outside of Trenton in 1776.

If Temple wins at Duke Monday night, a new term called the Cardoza effect might develop.

On Sunday, Tonya Cardoza, the new coach of the Owls, returned to New Orleans -- the city of good times on visits during her years as a Connecticut assistant -- and guided her group to an impressive overtime win at Tulane.

She's also had a history of success with the Huskies contingent who have tangled with the Blue Devils in the Research Triangle.

And, yes, the Guru will be on the scene.

Delaware's revival from its worst season in a long time is good news for Blue Hens rookie volleyball player Elena Delle Donne.

With Tina Martin's group doing well, the fan base has less reason to mount a campaign and hope for the former Ursuline basketball star at Wilmington's Ursuline Academy to return to the sport of her previous acclaim.

On the other hand, as soon as perennial Colonial Athletic Association champion Old Dominion appears on the conference schedule horizon, there might be a few knocks on the dorm door from the fan base to lend a hand.

When does the stroke of the New Year arrive late and still on time for St. Joseph's.

The Hawks are heading West Wednesday for a one-stop road trip visit to Gonzaga, which lost to Tennessee on Tuesday night. It's a return for the Zags' visit to Hawk Hill a year in which they smoked the fieldhouse right after St. Joseph's had upset Auburn.

Cindy Griffin and her entourage will have a few extra hours to get settled, even when celebrating 2009 will be well under way in the East. What she doesn't need is the expected snow in the Northwest to strand her squad the way Baylor was in Oregon last week.

And now, Hall of Famer and assistant Leon Barmore was not on that trip. A source told us he doesn't make the snow trips, but he was down in the tropics earlier on Baylor's schedule.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: An AP story previewing the game)

Staley hopes to emulate Auriemma’s program
By PETE IACOBELLI
AP Sports Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. — How good are Dawn Staley’s chances to turn South
Carolina into a women’s basketball powerhouse? About the same as Geno
Auriemma’s were 24 years ago of winning championships at Connecticut.

Auriemma didn’t have a shot at luring Staley to Storrs, Conn., a
quarter-century back. Five national titles later, Auriemma has his
choice of the country’s best recruits — a position Staley, the
first-year South Carolina coach, hopes her program reaches.

Staley will get the chance to watch Auriemma’s team up close when
the top-ranked Huskies (10-0) take on South Carolina (6-4) on Sunday.
Auriemma sees no reason why Staley, driven to succeed as a player, a
pro, an Olympian and a college coach, can’t bring that to Columbia.

“They either buy into what you represent or are trying to create or
there’s a tradition that already exists,” Auriemma said Saturday after
his team’s workout. “If you have both, then you’ve got it made.”

“I think with Dawn’s name, and her reputation and with the facility
here, I certainly think that it’s not only possible but highly
probable” that Staley will turn the Gamecocks into an elite team in the
Southeastern Conference, Auriemma said.

Just don’t count on seeing it Sunday.

Connecticut (10-0) brings its high-powered offense to the Colonial
Life Arena against a South Carolina team that frankly, according to
Staley, isn’t prepared to handle such an attack.

She cut practice short Saturday because she couldn’t take the
errors as the Gamecocks drilled for their first game in a week.

South Carolina already dropped a 78-47 decision to then
third-ranked Stanford earlier this month. When asked if her team was
closer to competing with elite teams than before, Staley shook her head
and replied, “No.”

Staley, who left Temple after eight seasons and took the job in May, has vowed this won’t last. She points to Auriemma’s business plan as a model for what South Carolina
can accomplish.

The two coaches, among the most influential on the women’s game the
past two decades, haven’t coached against each other, or have much of a
relationship. Staley went to Virginia a couple of seasons after

Auriemma left for UConn. Auriemma was an assistant on the 2000 U.S.
women’s Olympic team that featured Staley at the point and won
America’s second straight gold medal. Auriemma was a late addition to
the team and the two had little interaction on the trip to Sydney,
Staley said.

Count Staley a Husky fan, though.

“They play at another level of basketball that we’re trying to get
to,” Staley said.

Connecticut is cruising this season. Led by Maya Moore, the Huskies
have opened with 10 wins in a row for the third straight season. They
came into the season ranked No. 1 and have done nothing to change
anyone’s opinion. Connecticut beat then-No. 4 Oklahoma 106-78 in
November.

Moore, who’s averaging 19.2 points to lead the Huskies, thinks she
and her teammates understand the challenges they’ll come up against in
every game as the country’s top team.

Auriemma said this group is mature enough to handle whatever they
take on, as long as they continue to work as hard as they have.

Staley’s trying to get that same commitment from her group. But
with just three of 12 roster members upperclassmen, Staley says it’s
hard to get those lessons to take root.

Staley will get all the inspiration she needs that even the biggest
building projects can succeed by watching Auriemma and the Huskies in
this one.

“When you’ve built you’re program up with that kind of tradition,
you have the pick of the litter,” she said. “You got to take your hat
off for what he’s done.”

by Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

There are 342 teams competing at the Division I level of college basketball this season. Between them, there are a total of three Romanian players.

Naturally, two of them play at schools located four blocks apart.

Drexel junior forward Gabriela Marginean and Penn senior guard Anca Popovici play on opposite sides of Market Street in Philadelphia’s University City neighborhood, and their teams contest one of the better rivalries in the region.

It might not have the cachet of the Big 5, since the Dragons aren’t officially part of the City Series. But if you caught the nationally-televised game between the schools’ men's teams at the beginning of the season, you saw how seriously both programs take the matchup - and that it really does only take a few minutes to get from one school’s arena to the other on foot.

Mel wrote about this year’s women’s game after Drexel beat Penn, 62-52, last Friday. As that game was the last in which Marginean and Popovici faced each other while in college, it seemed an appropriate time to take a closer look at their connection.

Marginean grew up in Cluj and Popovici in Arad. The two cities are the third- and 15th-largest in Romania, respectively, and are about a four-hour drive apart.

Popvici said the two played against each other a few times in Romania; they also played together on the Under-20 national team. Marginean was the team’s top scorer, averaging 19.3 points per game; Popovici dished out a team-high 2.4 assists per game.

But their friendship truly blossomed when Popovici moved to the United States to attend Mount de Chantal Academy in Wheeling, W. Va., for high school, and Marginean joined her a year later.

“She has always been a tremendous player,” Popovici said of Marginean. “When I came to Mount de Chantal, we needed more players, so we asked her to come.”

Marginean added that the recruiting visit, as it were, came during Popovici’s junior year.

Once Marginean got to Mount de Chantal, she and Popovici were roomate. Originally had no idea they’d end up near each other in college. But it wasn’t totally random either.

“[Marginean] was also looking at Villanova, so we thought there was potential for her to be here and we got excited,” Popovici said. “But we always joke that she’s following me around.”

The other common thread in their travels is former NBA player and Villanova alumnus Doug West, who was the athletic director at Mount de Chantal from 2004 to 2006. Now back on the Main Line as an assistant coach with the Wildcats’ men’s team, it’s a fair bet that West helped steer Popovici and Marginean towards the Philadelphia area.

There they were last week, facing off one final time at Penn’s fabled Palestra before heading in different directions once again. The numbers are still striking: three players spread across 342 Division I teams, and two of them play four blocks from each other.

But this being the time of year many of us devote to reuniting with family and friends, the story seems a good one to tell.

Best wishes to all of you for a happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season.

Thanks to Drexel’s sports information department for helping with some of the background information and statistics.

(Guru's update note: Fixing total number of poll weeks to 563 in first reference)

By Mel Greenberg

As a way of welcoming South Dakota State to the neighborhood as well as providing the type of trivia that often become part of pre-game notes by our friendly sports information directors, here is some items from the Guru's database vault of 33 years of voting in the Associated Press women's poll.

First, as for those Jackrabbits who are full-fledged Division I rookies, South Dakota State became the 146th team to be ranked, although some of the group are no longer eligible in terms of classification to be ranked.

Aaron Johnston, who heads the Jackrabbits, is the 233rd coach to be listed including a few who are along for the ride as a resulted as having been listed as a co-head coach when their ranking occurred.

The ranking also brought South Daokota into the fold as the 46th state to have a team appear.

The misisng four: brrr -- Alaska, which has a failed vice presidential candidate but no team in the Division I group, North Dakota, Maine and New Hampshire.

In terms of conferences, the debut also made the Summitf League earn a first-ever ranking under its current name. As the Mid-Con, back in 1993, Northern Illinois, now in the Mid-American Conference earned a ranking.

Five current conferences have yet to be represented either by a member ranked with a previous group or by any current member.

The group of absentees include the Ivy League, Big South, MEAC, Northeast, and Patriot League.

And for the parityadvocates among you here are some traditionally longtime teams over the decades who are missing in action or have made only sporadic appearances in recent years and are missing in action:

Georgia
Penn State
North Carolina State
LSU (talk about plunge)
Piurdue (had appeared recently)
Old Dominion (same for them)
Texas Tech
Southern Cal
UCLA
Iowa
Louisiana Tech
Iowa

And now, in tribute to Connecticut's move to reclaim most No. 1s in the history of 563 weeks, including twice when ties occurred (Louisiana Tech-Tennessee, Texas-Old Dominion), here's the entire group:

Connecticut 113
Tennessee 1 12
Louisiana Tech 83
Texas 47
Duke 34
Old Dominion 34
Virginia 24
Southern Cal 16
LSU 15
Maryland 14
Auburn 11
Stanford 9
Wayland Baptist 9
Iowa 8
Penn St. 6
Vanderbilt 6
Delta St. 5
Georgia 5
North Caro. 5
Notre Dame 5
Purdue 4

And here are the total group as the last entry until the Christmas post:

Tennessee 549
La. Tecdh 447
Georgia 431
Texas 414
Stanford 348
Penn St. 344
N.C, State 325
Rutgers 324
LSU 320
Conn. 317
Maryland 308
Auburn 307
Purdue 304
Vanderbilt 302
Virginia 302
North Car.. 296
Old Dom. 294
Duke 276
Tex. Tech 265
Miss. 226
Long Bch 222
Ohio St. 222
Sothn Cal 200
S.F, Austn 198
Iowa 196
Kansas 176
W. Ky. 176
Notre Dam 166
Oklahoma 164
Colorado 158
Kan St. 147
Clemson 145
UCLA 137
Wash 136
Baylor 135
Alabama 133
South Car 130
Florida 120
UNLV 115
Geo. Was. 110
Arkansas 102
Cheyney 102
DePaul 100
Ariz St. 95
Iowa St. 95
Kentucky 95
Minnesota 93
Mich St. 88
Bost Coll 85
Wisconsin 85
Oregon 84
Tex A&M 73
Northwest 67
Arizona 65
Illinois 63
Missouri 61
Okla St. 57
St. Jos 57
UCSB 54
California 53
Mo. St. 53
Utah 52
Nebraska 47
Hawaii 46
Miss St. 46
Va. Tech 45
Delta St. 44
Villanova 44
Memphis 43
Way Bapt 43
Sn Dgo S. 40
JMU 39
Colo St. 36
Oregon St. 36
Tenn Tech 36
Mntclr St. 34
Tulane 34
Fla. Intl. 33
Houston 31
La.-Mon 31
TCU 29
Louisville 28
Miami 28
West Va 28
Sou Miss. 27
Valdos St. 27
New Mex 26
Queens 26
Temple 26
Providence 25
Wis.-GB 24
Montana 23
Seton Hall 21
Xavier 21
Bow Grn 20
Sou Conn. 20
BYU 18
Immac 18
Marquette 18
Detroit 17
No. Ill. 17
Pittsburgh 17
Sou Ill. 17
Florida St. 15
Mercer 14
Michigan 13
San Fran 13
Vermont 13
Wyoming 13
CS Fullton 11
Drake 11
Boise St. 10
Cincinnati 10
Mid Tenn. 10
Miss Coll. 10
La Salle 9
St. John's 9
Ga. Tech 8
Illinois St. 8
Lamar 7
N Mex St. 6
UTEP 6
Wm Penn 6
CP Pom 5
East Car 5
St. Peter's 5
Syracuse 5
Wake For 5
Jacksn St. 4
Marist 4
Tenn-Chtt 4
Toledo 4
Cent Mo. 3
Creighton 3
Indiana St. 3
Sant Clara 3
SE La. 3
Gonzaga 2
Idaho 2
Ark St. 1
Fordham 1
Georgetn 1
Ga. St. 1
Indiana 1
Oral Rbts 1
S Dak St. 1

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _-This is another one of those time to time Guru reports from a day in the life when everything goes wrong but comes out right in the end.

Unlike our good friend Mechelle Voepel who gives you a piece of her life with basketball, we sometimes give you a piece of basketball to go with our life.

We begin by oversleeping Monday morning from our late-night desk shift the previous day and so hurried to jump in the car and head to The Palestra where St. Joseph's at one time had been scheduled to host Seton Hall at 1 p.m.

Underway, we notified Hawk spokesman Jack Jumper we would be arriving soon to which he responded, "The game doesn't start until 5 p.m." Apparently it had been moved to be part of a doubleheader with the men's game against Cornell.

Not to worry, the Guru decided he could detour over to neartby Drexel, which had a 1 p.m. start against Richmond.

You should know that an unwritten tradition has developed in the city that when the Guru arrives late, no matter how much time is remaining, the score will be tied or near enough upon his arrival to have not missed a thing.

Sometimes the score is high, sometimes it is low, and in the case of Villanova, sometimes there is nearly no score at all.

And so it was that a tie was on the scoreboard late in the game at Drexel before Richmond pulled away at the finish.

Meanwhile, a check on the Guru's blackberry revealed that Villanova rode the momentum of its upset of Temple Saturday by promptly losing to visitng Delaware in a narrow upset.

There's no truth to the rumor that an agreement was made ahead of that game that the loser would get the rights to former top basketball propsect Elena Delle Donne, who had the Wildcats among her final basketball choices, but then decided to forego Connecticut and play volleyball at nearby Delaware.

That part of the day expired the Guru shot over to The Palestra where he planned to update his Associated Press women's poll database and companion index files as he does every Monday after the poll is released on the wire.

For the last several weeks, the Guru had alerted AP national women's writer Doug Feinberg in New York that UConn was closing in on Tennessee to re-take the total number of all time No. 1 rankings.

Based on the index file, which get updated manually, this was going to be the week that the two would be tied. And so as the Guru read the poll and story, he saw the mention that the two teams were tied 113 to 113.

So the Guru then went to work -- but as the Hawks were going at the Pirates in solid control of the action at that moment, he did a quick readout count of the Tennessee-Connecticut No. 1 situation on the main file.

The output revealed that Connecticut actually had taken over this week 113-112. The Guru did a quick doublecheck and the result quickly stood.

Knowing Doug was covering the N.C. State-Columbia game and potentially unreachable, the Guru quickly alerted AP headquarters in New York to adjust Doug's story.

He also left word for UConn spokesman Randy Press, whose team was believed still in transit from the weekend trip south of the border, knowing the Guru's vast friends in the UConn media contingent would jump on that development.

Meanwhile with St. Joe's still comfortably ahead, the Guru noted to Jumper that as long as the Guru was still doing damage control and normal updates on the poll files, the Hawks would stay ahead.

"Just hope I don't finish until the final buzzer," the Guru quipped to the Hawks spokesman.

The Guru also had to deal with which way to enter South Dakota State in the database as a brand new entry to the files.

The good news was that since Jackrabbits coach Aaron Johnston was a male, he would not have to be researched for playing on as well as coaching an AP ranked women's team.

An aside for our Summit League friends. -- Formerly known as the Mid-Con, the last member to be ranked was Northern Illinois, now in the Mid-American, which last appeared in the final poll of the 1993 season. Oral Roberts, a current Summit member, was ranked once when it was an independing in 1983 when it was then coached by Debbie Yow, sister of Kay Yow, the legendary N.C. State coach and now the overall athletic director of Maryland.

That made her the first to have three different teams ranked, including Kentucky and Florida, a statistic believe it or not she still uses in her resume.

Anyhow, as the Guru finished processing all the files he turned his attention to the contest at hand just in time to see -- Seton Hall take the lead. Ultimately, it went into overtime and the Pirates pulled a Disney Captain Jack Sparrow escape at the finish.

The Guru then ran over to get reactions on the game from both coaches for an account he had planned to write for the blog.

Seton Hall's Phyllis Mangina talked about not wanting to go into the Christmas break with a four-day case of blahs from a loss.

St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin talked about it being a learning experience for her team which had a lead on a quality opponent whereas previously they were playing catchup in similar situations.

Meanwhile, as the Guru sat to begin writing the account, he thought it would be nice to get in touch with Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma to let him know of the milestone involving the poll.

Within a second of the thought, Jonathan, in the arena to cover the game for Philly.com, buzzed the Guru to say Geno was in the house.

Now the Guru knows what you're thinking.

It's nice for Geno to jet straight from the tropics to meet the Guru and in the process get a chance to watch his own son Michael Auriemma, a freshman walk-on at St. Joe's under Auriemma's good friend Phil Martelli.

It was actually the other way around.

But the day was saved in that the Guru got his wish. Geno was pleased to get the word but said he still had concern over the lack of another post player on the roster.

"We can't afford to get into foul trouble," said Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown and was once a St. Joe's women's assistant when Jim Foster, now at Ohio State was in charge of the Hawks.

Of course if a certain post player at Delaware ---

Geno told many of the Hawk faithful in quick chit-chats how much Michael loves the school, his coach, and his teammates.

The Guru then noted that he had covered the St. Joe men a week ago and told Geno that he and Michael had one thing in common -- they both get to clear the bench in blowouts, although Geno usually does so six minutes into the game.

Geno was heard to mention he told Michael he would be in a 20-20-20 situation as a freshman -- "You'll play in the last 20 seconds and your team will be either up 20 or down 20."

The Guru could not cite himself as a source of the previous quote since he did not have authority to speak on Auriemma's behalf because the Huskies coach had yet to tell the quip to the UConn media.

But the entire day was not over.

The Guru stopped by his late night diner to see if Valeria -- the young cashier from Moldava he mentioned in a previous blog -- had tried on the souvenir shirt of the state of North Carolina he brought back from his recent trip to Duke.

Before he could ask, Valeria decided to greet him with six paragraphs of Spanish.

The Guru made a one sentence response in French -- no not that line.

Valeria then adjusted her comments in French and switched again to Roumanian.

Unfortunately, because of the economy, the Guru has been unable to borrow translators from the United Nations when Valeria loves scrambling the Guru's mind with the eggs he orders.

And so with sunrise fast approaching, the Guru headed home to finish this report and get some quick shuteye.

We'll be back in the next 24 with some serious commentary.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: This is the raw copy sent to the office for print coverage and potentially will be sliced for space considerations. This version adds the permutations of the Big Five race for the rest of the season.)

By Mel Greenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Months ago Villanova’s Laura Kurz had her team’s Big Five game against Temple at the Pavilion circled on her calendar.

Saturday the Wildcat senior keyed a direct hit on the target with 21 points on the way to a 65-56 victory that snapped a record 18-game win streak by the Owls in City Series competition.

Kurz’s effort was the 13th performance with 20 or more points by the former Germantown Academy star since transferring from Duke two seasons ago.

“It’s disappointing that we lost two Big Five games this year,” Kurz said. “But it’s great to beat Temple. Obviously, they’re a great team and any Big Five win is a great win for us.

“It almost went down to the wire at the end so being able to come out on top – we’ve had a lot of close games this year and they haven’t all gone well for us so it’s nice to come home with a win.”

Villanova (6-4, 2-2 Big Five) finished the round-robin at .500. Had the Wildcats not lost to La Salle in overtime in the season opener and to St. Joseph’s in triple overtime, they would be celebrating a title.

Instead, the race becomes wide open among the Owls (5-4, 0-1), St. Joseph’s, and La Salle.

Temple could still add to their record string of four straight outright Big Five titles at 4-0 could win a fifth straight outright at 3-1 if La Salle loses to Penn and Temple, while St. Joseph's most lose to Temple and La Salle.

Either La Salle or St. Joseph's as of now could go unbeaten to claim a title. It could be that their will be a tie involved by the time the competition ends next month.

Saturday's loss ruined the Big Five debut of Temple coach Tonya Cardoza and was perhaps her most painful setback to date.

“Definitely,” Cardoza agreed. “The fact there was an 18-game win streak on the line and we let it get away from us was disappointing.”

Ironically, back in December of 2000, Villanova also ruined the Big Five debut of Cardoza’s friend and Temple predecessor Dawn Staley on a day Wildcats coach Harry Perretta gained his 400th career victory.

In Saturday’s game, Villanova’s Heather Scanlon, a graduate of Cardinal O’Hara, tied a career-high with 10 points. Wildcats senior Siobhan O’Connor also scored 10 points.

Temple’s Shaqwedia Wallace had a game-high 26 points, while Shenita Landry grabbed 10 rebounds.

Villanova opened with a surge of three-pointers, spurring the Wildcats to a 22-12 lead with 8 minutes, 19 seconds left in the first half. But the Owls rallied with an 8-0 run to move within a basket at 22-20 before the home team went into the halftime break ahead, 30-24.

The Wildcats built a 14-point lead nearly midway through the second half before the Owls again shaved the deficit.

But a combination of missed layups and a game total of 20 turnovers was costly for Temple.

“We kept giving ourselves chances to get back in the game,” Cardoza said. “We couldn’t get on the offensive boards. We missed 31 shots and came away with only eight offensive rebounds.”

Perretta summed up his team’s efforts, saying, “We like to make these games exciting. We got a little lucky but we needed some luck so I guess it evens out.”

Villanova will host Delaware Monday while Temple travels to Ball State.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - The fates have been kind and unkind to first-year Temple coach Tonya Cardoza in terms of her first City Series game as the Owls open defense of their string of four-straight Big Five titles at Villanova Saturday afternoon (1 p.m.).

"Dawn told me, `You just don't want to lose any of those,'" Cardoza replied was asked last June at her introductory press conference what Dawn Staley had told her about Big Five competition.

Temple is on a record 18-game win streak in the local round-robin that includes four straight 4-0 performances.

Cardoza also knows of Big Five men's and women's lore from her former boss at Conecticut when the former Huskies assistant coach worked with Geno Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown.

But in Temple's first opponent, the former Virginia star has much familiarity in Villanova, which is the good news.

However, that familiarity brings dread from the longtime battles between the Wildcats, under coach Harry Perretta's patient offense, and the Huskies in the Big East wars.

The highlight, of course, from 'Nova's side occurred in 2003 when the Wildcats ended Connecticut's NCAA-record 70-game win streak to grab the Big East tournament title.

The Huskies, however, recovered to win the NCAA crown.

"I hate playing Villanova," Cardoza said after Temple's last game 10 days ago at home against Toledo. "I think anyone does.

"Because Harry runs their offense and all that running around -- they're just a very difficult team to play against," Cardoza explained. "We have 10 days off from playing, but it will be exciting to start the Big Five. I've heard a lot about it. I know there's a great reputation with Temple winning so I'm excited about that first game."

Apparently, some of Auriemma's wry humor has rubbed off on Cardoza.

When Shanea Cotton set a career scoring record for a game against Toledo, Cardoza quickly added, "She also set a career record for turnovers."

Meanwhile, Perretta is sure of one facet in the game against the Owls based on the Wildcats' local performance to date.

"I guess you can say it's going to go down to the wire," he quipped. "We lost one game in overtime (La Salle), one in triple overtime (St. Joseph's), and won one in the final seconds (Penn)."

As for comparing Temple's style from the past, Perretta observed, "They still play real hard. If there's any difference, they are playing a more wide open offense and seem to be shooting more three-pointers."

Stringer and Chaney Still Helping The Cause

Next month former Temple men's coach John Chaney and Owls head team doctor Ray Moyer are going to be inducted into the school's hall of fame.

One stipulation Chaney has made through the invitations being sent to alumni and others in the community in terms of fundraising that a contribution be marked to benefit women's athletics at Temple.

Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer used to coach with Chaney at Cheyney back in the day in the suburban Philadelphia.

As her success continues, she has not forgotten some of the greats she has encountered along the way.

When asked why schedule Prairie View, which recently almost upset the Scarlet Knights, Stringer said the idea was to bring visiting coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, a former WNBA and Olympic star, into the spotlight.

It's the same reason she hired former Texas star Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil as an assistant last summer.

Stringer said she was also looking for ways to get former Georgia sensation Katrina McClain to become more involved with today's game.

Davis-Wrightsil, McClain, and Stringer are Women's Basketball Hall of Famers, while Cooper-Dyke will be inducted in June.

Homecoming Revisited

In the Guru's previous post, he mentioned that when Rider visits La Salle on Sunday it will mean a return to the area for coach Lynn Milligan, a former St. Joseph's assistant.

Taking it a step further, however, Rider assistant Pam Durkin was an assistant at Drexel for seven years, including one with Milligan. Another staff member is former Penn State star Rashana Barnes, a native of Philadelphia who also served time as a St. Joseph's assistant.

Rider, incidentally, is a co-host of the Trenton Regional in the NCAA tournament and a source informed the Guru he needs to refer to the women's team as the Broncs instead of the Broncos.

Almost Silent Knapp

When Penn drew one of the Quakers' all-time crowds of more than 2,000 for Friday afternoon's game at Drexel, the turnout made it for a quieter day in the Palestra where Penn coach Pat Knapp patrols the sidelines.

Oh, he wasn't any less vocal. It's just that with the noise level increased from a the massive numbers of school children in the crowd, it was nearly impossible to hear him in the stands unless one was seated near the Penn bench.

That's probably the first time the crowd had eclipsed Knapp since he coached Georgetown on trips to Connecticut in the Big East Conference.

Speaking of UConn, barring some shocking upset to the Huskies, Tennessee will suffer another indignity following the Vols' dip out of the Top 10 last Monday for the first time in ages.

If Connecticut is still at the top of the AP Poll, as expected, the Huskies will have caught Tennessee again in total No. 1 appearances since the poll began in 1976-77.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

The Guru/'s visit to Durham, N.C., earlier in the week for the Duke-Stanford game included the usual visit to his favorite steakhouse where he often dines with his good friend Lindy Brown, the Blue Devils women's media contact.

Since we promised to give the Angus tradition the headline that is why it leads and also to whet the appetite of our Temple friends since we will return with the Owl delegation after the New Year.

Lindy brought along a graduate intern from his staff which created a reunion of sorts in that one Kate Burkholder, who helped bring the Guru's blog to new dimensions as a Rutgers student, is now handling several Duke sports and is the No. 2 contact for women's basketball.

Of course, with Lindy in charge, that is like being vice president of the United States.

However, all of the Guru's friends in Durham give her work to date glowing reviews.

The Guru also presented some Phillies memorabilia since the one thing wrong she did as a life-long fan is pick this particular season to stray far from home at the close of the baseball season.

But the Guru noted the Phillies did not become a postseason participant again after a long absence until she visited spring training two seasons ago.

On the trip, two gentlemen revealed themselves as the culprits who have posted a link from the Duke fan board to the Guru's blog.

And the Guru spent a little time in the afternoon with Duke senior associate athletic director Jacki Silar, who is now the chair of the women's basketball committee.

Part of the chat included looking ahead to this year's mock bracket in February, which will include four active coaches in, what unintentially is a Big 12 vs. Big East showdown -- Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw and DePaul's Doug Bruno from the Big East schools and Oklahoma's Sherri Coale and Texas A&M's Gary Blair from the Big 12.

Coale is also the president of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.

The Guru pointed out something called to his attention by colleague Doug Feinberg of the Associated Press -- Last year we all played the role of someone on the actual committee.

The three persons with coaching experience but not active were Joe Ciampi (Auburn), Marsha Sharp (Texas Tech), and Theresa Grentz (Illinois).

The question becomes what happens in terms of leaving the room when we start talking about the schools for selection and bracketing since all four are expected to be in the mix with the Big 12 duo right now looming among the higher seeds.

Also, during a flight delay on the return trip, the Guru learned he was sharing the plane with Nora Lynn Finch, the new associate commissioner for women's basketball for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The two have a long association dating back to her previous role as North Carolina State senior associate athletic director and also as the first chair of the NCAA committee.

The Local Schedule

Drexel is at Penn at The Palestra at noon for the annual neighborhood showdown on Friday, while new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza gets her first taste of Big Five action Saturday when the Owls visit Villanova at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Temple is carrying an 18-game win streak, including four straight perfect 4-0 titles into the City Series. Villanova could easily be 3-0 but is 1-2 after losing in overtime to La Salle and St. Joseph's.

The Hawks will be hosting Seton Hall at the Palestra at 1 p.m. on Monday, the same time Drexel hosts Richmond.

On Monday, Delaware visits Villanova at noon in a game in which one Elena Delle Donne will be an invisible force.

Why?

Had she chosen Villanova for basketball from her original final four choices, she would either bei in uniform as a Wildcat or on the bench as a redshirt (with Harry Perretta anything is possible and he is usually proven right).

Had she chosen to also play basketball this season along with volleyball when she rejected Connecticut, she would be in uniform for the Blue Hens and the Pavilion would have a sizeable crowd over the visit.

On Sunday, Rider is at La Salle at 1 p.m. making it a pseudo homecoming to the immediate area for Broncos coach Lynn Milligan, who was formerly an assistant at St. Joseph's.

Unitl further notice, like 24 hours from now when the Guru sets up the Temple-Villanova game, that is all, expect a quick hello to the Wildcats' Laura Kurz from all her friends with the Blue Devils at Duke, which she originally attended before transferring to the Main Lne.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

DURHAM, N.C. - In one sense Tuesday night's 56-52 upset of No. 8 Duke over No. 3 Stanford at Cameron Indoor Stadium was simply one of those early season games in which two national powers gets to test themselves against each other.

Learn something and move on to the next battle to get ready for conference play.

While the rugged physicality of the contest was not to the likes of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, Bue Devils coach Joanne P. McCallie said the style of play was helpful with an eye to the NCAA tournament.

"I like it because that is what March and April is," she said. "That was a March-April game in December. That's the road of it. There are less calls and more attempts to have players determine the game. And I felt this was very similar to that."

It also is a game that will be mentioned much later not because of anything classic, though McCallie referred to it as a "heavyweight fight," that Duke tried to transform into more of a "lightweight" encounter.

But come deliberation time in terms of the pecking order for the NCAA tournament field, this was one both teams needed in their resume, especially Duke.

"No question, this is a big game," Duke senior associate athletic director Jacki Silar said earlier in the day.

She should know because she has been promoted to chair this year's NCAA Women's Basketball Committee.

In Stanford's situation, a win, if obtained against Duke (7-1) Tuesday night, and a win at Tennessee on Sunday would have pretty much put the Cardinal (7-2) well on the way to a No. 1 seed barring some unforeseen disruption in the Pac-10 conference.

But the Blue Devils win brings Stanford back to the pack of a large number of candidates of which, for now, Duke becomes part of the mix.

The Blue Devils will have opportunities to gain more notoriety in the Atlantic Coast Conference next month but just ahead is a weekend trip to the West Coast to meet Southern Cal.

Incidentally, McCallie now becomes a part of trivia in having a perfect 3-0 record against the Cardinal while employed at three different schools. Her Maine team upset Stanford in the 1999 tournament, 60-58, and her Michigan State team also pulled an upset, beating the Cardinal 76-69 in an NCAA regional semifinal on the way to the meeting Baylor in the 2005 championship contest.

As for Tuesday's action, the momentum swung in spurts throughout until the Blue Devils were able to make a few big plays down the stretch to win.

"We didn't really give ourselves a chance," VanDerveer said. "If you can't make layups and free throws, I think you're going to be in for a long night. So compliments to Duke and I'm really disappointed in what we did."

Stanford shot 12-for-27 from the line and 38.3 percent from the field. Duke was 17-of-22 on foul shot opportunities and shot 30.5 percent.

For the second time in less than a week a player with the last night Christmas figured appropriate for this time of year in their respective team's upset.

Back in Philadelphia last weekend Dionte Christmas starred in the Temple men's upset of Tennessee.

Down here, Duke sophomore Karima Christmas -- no relation -- had a career night with 14 points and nine rebounds. She also made her first three-pointers, shooting 2-for-2 from beyond the arc.

Chante Black also scored 14 points with 10 occurring in the second half.

Stanford's Jayne Appel scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Jeanette Pohlen scored 13 points, including connecting on 4-of-8 three point attempts.

But Kayla Pedersen was 2-for-10 from the field, although Duke senior Abby Waner struggled on a 3-for-12 effort with all six points occuring in the first half.

Incidentally, Temple will visit down here on January 5 before the Owls begin play in the Atlantic Ten.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: Due to the nature of how the events flowed involving Thursday night's narrow 58-56 victory by Rutgers over Prairie View A&M, the Guru is splitting the post-game comments into separate stories.)

By Mel Greenberg

PISCATAWAY, N.J. _ As it evolved, Thursday night's game between the Rutgers women's basketball team and Prairie View A&M presented the first opportunity to get Scarlet Knights' coach C. Vivian Stringer's reaction to Wednesday's firing of athletic director Robert E. Mulcahy III effective Dec. 31.

Mulcahy was at the game and given a nice applause by the crowd at the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center prior to the tipoff when he and Stringer presented junior guard Epiphanny Prince a ball commenorating her reaching her 1,000th career point on Monday night during the win over Georgia.

Soon after the game ended, many of the Rutgers faithful were observed approaching Mulcahy to give him well wishes.

"I feel bad, really bad, and sad," Stringer said "Bob is a good man. He really is. I've always known it. I was really shocked.

"He's an honorable man and he respects the kids. He treats them as he does his own," Stringer contined.

"Today, you have so many people who are just business people, They just operate as a machine and they don't care," she said.

"I want people to love my girls. I felt that they felt that he cared. And that he loved them. And I think the football players -- all the athletes did.

"And today, you hear this all time -- I'm angry about the game in that respect -- but at the end, I love the girls. I think that when you have an adminstrator that can somehow pull it off and young people think they care, they're special. I think he saw them as his own daughters and sons," Stringer added.

"I'm just personally hurt and disappointed that it happened."

-- Mel

(Guru's note: Fixing amanda butler item to add Georgia Tech's MaChelle Joseph name to file)

By Mel Greenberg

PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- The dateline so appears because this is being written from the media room following the Rutgers-Georgia game or so it was billed.

Not much to say about a 45-34 win by the No. 14 Scarlet Knights so for more elaboration go to the other usual places. But we'll return to some tidbits of the night in a bit.

While here, Stephen Lee wherever you are in the bogs of the South on Monday night, you get a Guru hero's award.

The since-graduated Rutgers correspondent for Guru central late last winter gave the Guru an alternative way to get on the athletic department wireless system and after the Guru's aircard lost its signal, this transmission is possible because the Guru had a non-senior moment in which he actually remembered the web address and so here we are well connected at super high speed.

Making History

Since many of you have been attracted to Guru-land because of the headline, here's the deal.

The home office called with an emergency draft dispatching the Guru to Towson in Maryland Tuesday night to cover the St. Joseph's men's nonconference matchup.

Now as many of you know, a certain freshman named Michael Auriemma is a member of the Hawks. So for the first time in over two decades, the Guru will be covering a basketball game involving an Auriemma whose first name is not Geno.

But the DNA will be active since he is the son of the famed UConn women's coach.

Incidentally the ride to Towson down I-95 makes a pass quite close to the Delaware campus.

So for a few seconds, it can be accurately stated that Blue Hens volleyball freshman Elena Delle Donne and an Auriemma were the closest they have been in proximity since that fateful night in early June when the former basketball sensation decided to return to her Wilmington home from the Storrs campus.

The Butler Does It

Florida's return to the Associated Press rankings Monday put second-year coach Amanda Butler in an exclusive group. She becomes the 24th person to coach and also play for an AP-ranked team.

She is also the sixth person to play and coach for the same school that earned the ranking. Here is the updated chart.

AP PLAYER-COACH HISTORY

(Played for and coached Ranked Teams)
NAME SCHOOL COACH SCHOOL PLAYED
1. Katie Abrahamson-Henderson Missouri St. Georgia/Iowa
2. Cheryl Burnett Missouri St. Kansas
3. Amanda Butler% Florida Florida
4. Pokey Chatman% LSU LSU
5. June Daugherty Boise St./Washington Ohio St.
6. Nell Fortner Purdue/Auburn Texas
7. Susie Gardner Arkansas Georgia
8. MaChelle Joseph Georgia Tech, Purdue
9. Wendy Larry% Old Dominion Old Dominion
10. JoAnne P. McCallie Michigan St./Duke Northwestern
11. Kathy McConnell-Miller Colorado Virginia
12. Muffet McGraw Notre Dame St. Joseph’s
13. Cheryl Miller% Southern Cal Southern Cal
14. Kim Mulkey Baylor Louisiana Tech
15. Mary Murphy Wisconsin Northwestern
16. Kathy Olivier UCLA UNLV
17. Carolyn Peck Purdue/Florida Vanderbilt
18. Laurie Pirtle Cincinnati Ohio St.
19. Carol Ross% Florida/Mississippi Mississippi
20. Bev Smith% Oregon Oregon
21. Dawn Staley Temple Virginia
22. Jan Ternyik San Francisco Montclair St.
23. Charli Turner Thorne Arizona St. Stanford
24. Amy Tucker* Stanford Ohio St.
*-Filled in for Tara VanDerveer in 1995-96
%-Four played and coached at same ranked school.

Other Poll Notables

Tennessee earned its 500th Top 10 appearance this week. Virginia with coach Debbie Ryan and Vanderbilt reached their 300th poll appearance. Ohio State's Jim Foster is at 299 off of three different programs.

The four-spot in the Top 10 last week and this week by Big 12 teams were the first for the conference since Dec. 31, 2001 when the quartet consisted of Oklahoma (3), Iowa State (4), Baylor (7) and Texas Tech (i9).

The two-spot in the Top 5 are the first for the Big 12 sincxe Baylor (3) and Texas (4) on Dec. 27, 2004.

When the Guru entered this week's poll into the overall data file, Duke occupied the 13,000th berth.

Rutgers Fab Five Becomes Fab Four

It has already been posted by other writers covering the game, but to go on the record here, during the postgame session with Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer, the Hall of Fame coach was asked about the absence of freshman Jasmine Dixon from the bench.

The response was terse, Stringer saying the "fit" wasn't there for the McDonald's all-American guard-forward from Long Beach, Calif., and said to "leave it at that."

She also thought former Rutgers star Matee Ajavon will do well in her new WNBA home with the Washington Mystics who picked her up with the second selection in the dispersal draft Monday of the former Houston Comets roster.

A former Comet who was a WNBA sensation during the league's formative years will be in the house here Thursday when coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke brings her Prairie View A&M team to the Rutgers Athletic Center.

Also, Epiphanny Prince scored her 1,000th point for Rutgers during the Georgia game.

If Georgia coach Andy Landers looked a little ill it wasn't necessarily because of the offense scoring less than half his dinner tab from the previous night.

But somewhere in that mix he contracted a stomach flu and didn't arrive at the arena until 25 minutes before the opening tip.

Incidentally, the Georgia total was the third lowest, eclipsed by two previous droughts in the program's first season.

The Guru asked Stringer to compare the current group's struggles with the squad of two years ago at the same time before the ship was reversed and sailed straight to the NCAA title game.

Stringer noted that there was more leadership, particularly from Ajavon and Essence Carson. But the mere mention of those names brought a smile because Camp Viv will be getting under way during the holiday break and the Rutgers notables of the past in the WNBA fold, including Cappie Pondexter, are expected to be on hand to provide advise and consent.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

The rookie volleyball season of Elena Delle Donne, the former top women's basketball prospect, came to an end Friday night when Delaware fell to Oregon in three straight sets at American University in Washington.

The Wilmington native, fighting former Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the vice-president elect of the United States, for local and national headlines, revoked her basketball scholarship from top-ranked Connecticut at the end of the summer, declaring her decision to enroll at Delaware and then to play volleyball. She took up the sport her senior season at Ursuline Academy.

Ironically, Delle Donne's former Fencor AAU teammate Caroline Doty, who starred at Germantown Academy and would have been her roommate in Connecticut, has become the new sensation with the Huskies, connecting currently on 10 straight three-point attempts, including an eye-catching 6-for-6 against Oklahoma.

And so with time on her hands when not working on classroom projects and homework, the real Delle Donne watch begins.

A close-knit community, Delaware athletes support each other at games in large numbers.

So if the Blue Hen women are struggling, as they did a year ago, will Delle Donne suddenly decide to give aid and comfort to coach Tina Martin, who has maintained a self-declared "hands off" policy, not wanting to create any pressure for Delle Donne to join the cause to restore Delaware as a power in the Colonial Athletic Association.

In a few weeks, Delaware travels to nearby Villanova, one of the finalists to Connecticut when Delle Donne was making her basketball decision.

Will she visit the game.

As the Wildcats have been struggling, the Guru has jested to Villanova fans: "You're looking at the same team that would exist if Delle Donne came here because (coach) Harry (Perretta) would have red-shirted her to give her a chance to adjust to collegiate life."

Better yet, will she turn up at some UConn game to watch Doty in action and risk being gobbled up by that media contingent known as The Horde?

As Jonathan alluded, whatever she does, it will be welcomed here where Delle Donne's name has been one of the top magnets attracting internet visits to the Guru's blog.

Stay tuned.

Penn Finally Wins a Game

The Quakers finally landed on the left column in scoreboard results on Friday when Penn edged Navy at The Palestra.

Jonathan was on the scene and filed a comment from coach Pat Knapp -- the Guru was up the street at Drexel -- which did not make the print story in Saturday's paper.

"It's a big weight off our shoulders," said Knapp, whose team suffered tough losses against St. Joseph's, Villanova, and at Lehigh. "These kids have been working hard, they never quit -- all the cliches. They play together.

"We've got to work hard to score, that's our thing. But boy did we have to rebound against this team -- a very, very physical team."

Foreign Affairs I and II

When Drexel rallied against Army before losing Friday, Black Knights coach Dave Magarity, who celebrated a homecoming, noted the number of foreign players on the Dragons roster.

"When I coached at Marist (the men), I had a little bit of a history recruiting foreigners -- Rick Smits and that crew -- and now here I am in a situation where I can't recruit foreign kids (to West Point). But these kids are great, they work hard, they certainly aren't the most talented group."

Margarity's daughter Maureen, also an Army assistant coach, once was an AAU teammate of Inquirer rookie 76er writer Kate Fagan, who was hired hired here at the home office last spring.

Meanwhile after Temple hosts Florida State Sunday afternoon (the Guru will be at the game for extended coverage here), the Owls on Wednesday will host Toledo, which features a talented freshman guard from Israel, originally destined for Boston College before Cathy Inglese's sudden resignation.

Guru's Two Sense on Parity

The number of upsets early in the same is causing the annual cry of the arrival of parity in the women's game, but it is merely parity for the moment -- in other words the jury is out.

Though one could not predict when upsets would occur, one could foresee a number happening early in the season.

Why?

Mosf of the major teams suffered key roster losses through graduation -- defending NCAA champion Tennessee with five starters, Candice Parker among them, for example. Knee injuries have also added to reducing experience levels on rosters.

The question is once the star-studded rookies, as in Rutgers, get the hang of what coaches are trying to teach, would the same results occur if the same games were played later in the season?

Another sign to watch if equality has arrived is the first half of the conference schedule. If the same powers are on top of the standings at the end of January, then November and December will have been nothing more than proving grounds for the the usual national combatants.

But if these races for regular season honors are close -- and they have been in more conferences in recent seasons in both won-loss records and final scores -- then, yes, perhaps it is occurring.

Also, because of the lack of clarity among the "usual suspects" going into November's opening tip, along with the perhaps temporary decline of some previous longtime poll residents -- Penn State lost at home Saturday to a rebuilding Dayton team -- most of the top 25 are not your grandmother's, aunt's, or older sister's nationally-ranked group.

So the upset label has been waiting to happen in this instance.

And with that, it's time to beat the sunrise out of the home office.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Not all that long ago when the 25th anniversary of the Women's Big Five city series competition was celebrated, your Guru was asked to compile a list of the all-time 25 players out of the five schools.

The deliberation occurred the same year the Big Five men celebrated their 50th anniversary, allowing much more flexibility with the larger number allotted for their all-star team.

In the women's selections, many picks were easy but the last choices were extremely tough.

In recent weeks it has been noted with not much fanfare that this is now the 30th season.

So as the Guru glanced at the page with his name on it in the Big Five guide for this season, he realized that the next edition should include the top 30 players to reflect the three decades of local warfare.

Being democratic as he is, the Guru allows your input, but here are the candidates he has already thrown on the list for consideration. None of the previous honorees need be erased, though some who just missed the cut will prehaps have to wait for the 35th anniversary.

The first four players listed below seem to be a cinch and then it becomes interesting for that fifth pick.

The one school shutout in this exercise is St. Joseph's - in part because nearly all the Hawk who's who made the 25 and were reflective of the domination into the early part of this decade.

The other reason is there has not been that year-to-year consistent player since Sue Moran, now an assistant coach graduated, though several might emerge when the 35th anniversary choices are made.

But here's the frontrunners from the Guru's viewpoint and then it becomes wide open.

Crista Ricketts -- La Salle -- Made four first-team honors and was a rookie of the year.

Jewel Clark -- Penn -- This should make Jonathan happy since he took issue with the Guru last time on her omission. She made three first-team honors, was a player of the year, and was associated with Ivy League glory.

Kamesha Hairston -- Temple -- She and Candice Dupree, who as a senior was the only active player to be named to the 25 group, got the Owls' current 18-game streak in the Big Five rolling. She earned two first-team awards, a second-team award, and one player of the year honor that arguably could have been two.

Carlene Hightower -- La Salle -- A late bloomer who continued to improve, she earned two first-team awards. a second-team honor, as was a player of the year last season as a senior.

Now, here are the others.

Courtney Mix -- Villanova -- Currently on the coaching staff of her alma mater, she earned a first team and two second team awards and was part of one of the great eras under Harry Perretta that included the only Big Five team to advance to the elite eight.

Stacey Smalls -- Temple -- Helped the Owls get rolling in the Dawn Staley coaching era, the current La Salle assistant and Cheltenham graduate was named to three first-teams.

Jen Zenszer -- La Salle -- She earned four postseason honors: three second teams and a first-team.

Liad Suez -- Villanova -- In her three seasons, this Israeli native earned two first team and one second team honors.

Denise Dillon -- Villanova -- Currently, Drexel's head coach, she was under consideration for the 25 group with two first team awards and a place in the Big Five Hall of Fame.

Linda Hester -- La Salle -- Just missed the last cut and former coach John Miller lobbied strongly on her behalf. She earned two first team awards.

Mary Greybush, Suzy McCaffrey -- La Salle. There were some lobbying on their behalf from the populace last time around.

Just so there's no confusion, here are the people who made the 25th anniversary team grouped by their alma mater.

La Salle -- Jennifer Cole, Chrissie Donahue, Tracey Sneed

Penn -- Kirsten Brendel, Diana Caramanico

Temple -- Pam Balough, Candice Dupree, Marilyn Stephens (currently Cheyney's head coach)

Villanova -- Lisa Angelotti, Nancy Bernhardt, Kathleen Beisel, Trish Juhline, Helen Koskinen (also Mrs. Perretta), Lisa Ortlip, Shelly Pennefather.

St. Joseph's -- Debbie Black, Teresa Carmichael, Megan Compain, Maureen Costello, Katie Curry, Renie Dunne, Kim Foley, Dale Hodges, Susan Moran, Angela Zampella.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – For most St. Joseph’s and Villanova women’s basketball players, the game between them that actually counts each season is a reunion from the number of times they go against each other either in local pickup games or in the summertime action of the Department of Recreation’s NCAA league at Northeast High.

But to some who do not have local roots, it may take a while to learn the expectations associated with Big Five competition, especially in the long history of the series between the Wildcats and the Hawks.

Apparently, St. newcomer Mariame Djourna is one who came absorb information quickly.

“`Coach’ and the team have been talking about it for the last week,” the junior college transfer who was born in Africa’s Ivory Coast said after scoring 32 points in the historic 66-57 triple overtime win by the Hawks Thursday night at Philadelphia University’s Gallagher Center. “Jenna and `Mick’ have been here for the longest time.

“I know it (the Big Five) is interesting, but not as in the conference the same thing,” Djourara said about the differences beween the round-robin and the Atlantic Ten. It’s fun and I’m happy we won.”

“She was crying – tears of joy,” Hawks senior guard Mary Kate McDade, a graduate of Nazareth Academy, said.

For McDade and senior Jenna Loschiavo, a graduate of Plymouth Whitemarsh, the game was one last chance to add another win against the Wildcats (3-4, 1-2 Big Five) to their collegiate resume.

Loschiavo put the Hawks (4-3, 2-0 Big Five) ahead to stay, 60-57, with a three-pointer, only the second in the game fror St. Joseph’s, with 3 minutes, 9 seconds left in the third overtime.

“For me and ‘Mick,’ it was our last time playing Villanova,” Loschiavo said. “You see that Mariame and `Brit’ (Brittany Ford’s 24 points), had all the points. But, defensively, for everything to click everyone had to play team basketball.”

Djouara, who was 13-for-30 from the field, was 4-for-6 in the final overtime to help the Hawks prevail.

The resident of Owing Mills, Md., near Baltimore, was asked if her heroics helped overcome a foul on Villanova’s Lisa Karcic with 0.01 left in the second overtime.

The game was extended when Karcic made only one of two free throws to tie the score at 57-57.

“Who can remember?” Griffin laughed about the marathon encounter, the longest in Big Five women’s history and for either team in its overall history.

“I remember,” Djouara smiled. “Yes.”

Griffin, who played Villanova as a member of the Hawks in her collegiate days, first learned of Djoara by getting an email.

“We looked at her and we beat out Georgia to get her,” Griffin said. “How does that happen?

“But she’s something else. She just wants to win. But she’s more than that. “She’s `Jameer’ special.”

Griffin’s reference was to former Hawks men’s star Jameer Nelson, now in the NBA, who as a senior was part of the 27-0 run before the team’s first loss, in the Atlantic Ten tournament, in 2003-04.

“My team has been helping me a lot with the transition and I am happy and thankful for my teammates because I couldn’t do what I did tonight without them.” Said Djouara. “All I want to do is be there when we they me the most.”

Her performance comes at the right time because the Hawks have been struck with adversity again. Sophomore center Sarah Acker, the Big Five’s top freshman last season, is sidelined, suffering with bursitis in her hip.

“I don’t expect her back this season,” Griffin said. “Hopefully, she might be able to help us at practice in the second semester.”

Djouara played 51 minutes of the 55 it took to complete the game. Loschiavo played in all 55 and McDade played in 54. Amy Gillespie played in 50 minutes and Ford played 43.

Grffin only used two players off the bench.

“This was not a game for certain players to be involved,” Griffin said. “But when we go to Hartford Saturday we’ll definitely need them. That will be different.”

On Villanova’s side, senior Laura Kurz played in 52 minutes, scoring 28 points and grabbing a career-high 14 rebounds. She also made 11 turnovers for a inordinate triple double. Heather Scanlon also had a career high, matching Kurz’s total on the backboards.

In 1986, the final game of the Big Five season for both school, a power failure on Villanova’s campus caused the game to be cancelled after play got under way.

Temple had already clinched the title with a 4-0 record.

St. Joseph’s and Villanova made up for those lost minutes Thursday night.

Prior to this season, the only overtime games in Big Five history were a 62-61 victory by Temple over the Hawks on Jan. 25, 2004, at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse, currently under renovation, and a 66-64 win by Temple at La Salle on January 8, 2006.

That win has contributed to Temple’s current record 18-game win streak in the City Series.

Villanova lost an overtime game to La Salle last month in the season opener for both teams and then beat Penn with a three-pointer just before the end of the game.

The loss knocks the Wildcats out of the Big Five race – Temple visits on Jan. 20 – and leaves the outcome open until Temple, St. Joseph’s and La Salle meet each other in January as part of the Atlantic Ten competition among them.

Thursday night’s game was typical of most close encounters in the Big Five and also typical of the low-scoring affairs that occur when Villanova is involved.

Points were so hard to come by, that it might have been possible to run down the street in East Falls to buy a cheesesteak from a well-known neighborhood establishment and return without missing any field goals.

“I thought it was a great atmosphere,” Villanova coach Harry Perretta said of the use of St. Joseph’s temporary home this season. “For a fan, it had to be great.”

The Hawks lead the all-time series, 26-12, between the two schools and lead the Wildcats, 86-84, in total Big Five wins since the round-robin began in 1979-80.

This is the 30th anniversary season for the women’s competition.

Kurz took personal responsibility for the loss.

“We are still making the same mistakes we have made all year,” said Kurz, a former Germantown Academy star who transferred from Duke prior to last season. “I continue to turn the ball over and I have offensive fouls at crucial times. It’s something I have been doing all year and I have been doing my whole career. At some point it has to register.

“It’s tough. I mean, I thought we were a mature team and a more experienced team. We should be better.”

Perretta lauded Kurz was accepting blame “as a fifth-year senior,” but also said the loss couldn’t totally be blamed on her mistakes.

“The bottom line is Maria Getty is 1-for-10 and Siobhan O’Connor was 1-for-7.”

He also bemoaned Villanova’s inability to make wide-open shots, especially for a team that set records for three-point shooting a year but has struggled from the outside this year as in Thursday night’s 5-for-31 effort from the field.

The Wildcats next stay home to host Lehigh Sunday.

-- Mel

(Guru’s note: There was no print story per se beyond a blurb on the Temple-Dartmouth game for the roundup in the Thursday paper, but information on the Owls’ 65-29 romp Wednesday night at the Liacouras Center is contained in the following report.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – Now that another former member of the Connecticut family has become a head coach, it looks like the Huskies and Temple could be meeting as soon as next year or as quick as a spot appears on each other’s schedule.

Depending on your perception, the potential home-and-home meeting has been set in motion either because the Guru and our colleague to the north – John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant – are negotiating through through UConn coach Geno Auriemma and new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza OR the two coaches are negotiating through the two media members.

Here’s the sequence of events with some background.

Altavilla and the Guru exchange tidbits from time to time on each other’s blogs because of the interest in Temple from Connecticut fans since former Huskies assistant Tonya Cardoza became the new Owls coach last spring.

And so it was that many in UConn territory watched the national telecast of Temple challenging No. 15 Rutgers at the Liacouras Center Monday night in a nonconference game won in the final minutes by the Scarlet Knights.

Auriemma was asked about his reaction to the game and Altavilla posted the following on his blog. He sent the details for the Guru to use and inform those who may not regularly check in on UConn coverage, although with Germantown Academy’s Caroline Doty off to a sensational freshman debut with the Huskies, it would seem there would be considerable interest down here in her exploits, which we’ll get to in a little bit.

But first, here’s Auriemma talking to Altavilla (we don’t know if it was exclusive or in the usual crowd) about Cardoza,

"Temple had a chance to win that game for a long time, until it got away in the final five minutes," Geno said. "Tonya has put together a good staff with experienced people. There's always excitement with a new coach around and they almost played a perfect game against Rutgers. I wartched Tonya on the sideline and she's young and aggressive, animated. It was fun."

"I haven't talked to Tonya about it," Geno said. "It would be completely up to them. They know our number and that we will always say yes. But I don't pursue it. We'll go down there, they can come here, at a time when its good, like it is now with Jen Rizzotti [and Hartford]. Those games are tough for us. They are no win games for us. You just win, you can't ever look good or come out feeling that we played well. It's just picking on some team."

Incidentally, during the game the Guru imparted Geno’s comments to the Temple athletic brass, who immediately became enthused.

Since both the Guru and Altavilla were interested in Cardoza’s reaction, the Guru did the honors at the end of the postgame press conference by making her aware of her former boss’s comments.

“When (former coach) Dawn (Staley) was here, she always wanted to play us,” Cardoza said with a sly grin. “Our excuse was always, `We already go to Philadelphia to play Villanova (in the Big East wars). But of course, anytime you can play Connecticut, you’re going to want to play them.

“And I hear he’s (Auriemma) looking to do a home-and-home and I think the fans of Philadelphia would love for them to come here, so, of course, I will make a phone call and try to set that up.”

As for the game, Temple (4-2) started sluggishly against the Big Green (1-5), falling behind, 10-4, in part, perhaps, for having a hangover from the tough loss 48 hours earlier to Rutgers.

Then the Owls put the hammer down with a 32-8 dash to halftime and a 38-18 lead. In the second half, the Owls did it offensively and defensively, outscoring Dartmouth 29-11.

Sophomore Shaqwedia Wallace had a career-high 18 points for Temple, while Shenita Landry added 14 points, and Shanea Cotton scored 11. Dartmouth’s Koren Schram had 15 points, and Brittney Smith grabbed 10 rebounds.

Prior to the game, veteran Dartmouth coach Chris Wieglus praised the Liacouras Center and said her group was thrilled to be in the house. She was less elated by the time the clock expired because of the play of her squad, which will return to town later in the schedule to play Penn in the Ivy League.

But Temple had a lot to do with the inability of the Big Green.

“We talked about trying to put (Rutgers) behind us,” Cardoza said of the slow start. “The only way we would really put it behind us is if we came out here and played well for 40 minutes.

“I think the adrenalin was probably going, but once they were able to get things done, I think everything went out there, but it was hard to get it started.”

Temple’s outside shooting was somewhat better with a 6-for-18 effort on three-pointers.

“For the most part, I am happy, but we can always get better at it. Six-for-18 is still not a good percentage,” Cardoza said. “But at least it wasn’t 27 jack-ups. Those guys (in the post) Shenita and Shanea were able to shoot 22 shots so that’s something we need to continue to do.

“Those guys need to get double-figure shots every single night and when those guys get (defensively) collapsed, they need to be able to quick it out and find the open guy.”

Temple only committed 11 turnovers while Dartmouth had 21 miscues.

Point guard LaKeisha Eaddy suffered a groin injury near the end of Monday night’s game and was sick Tuesday.

“I wasn’t going to play her but she wanted to play. She played a couple of minutes but I didn’t want to leave her out there long,” Cardoza said. “Getting (freshman) BJ (Williams) minutes was more important than Keisha hobbling around.”

Cardoza said she apologized to the newcomer for not getting her involved in the Rutgers game.

Temple hosts Florida State on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.

“It’s another opportunity to play a team that’s really good,” Cardoza said. “We get them at home again. It’s another opportunity to play against a team that’s good and see where we stand against top competition.”

Meanwhile, to pick up a loose end from earlier in this report, Connecticut freshman Doty was mentioned, in part because of the way she blitzed Oklahoma with a 6-for-6 effort on three-pointers.

Starting against Holy Cross, Wednesday night, Doty was 3-for-3 from behind the arc in 20 minutes of action, scoring 11 points in the 96-37 rout by the top-ranked Huskies.

Auriemma talked of Doty’s effort in the Oklahoma game prior to the contest against Holy Cross.

Again, here’s the discussion as it appeared in Altavilla’s blog.

Well, the bubble wrap is off Caroline Doty now and it's clear the kid has IT. You know what IT is, right? You'd know it if you saw IT. You'd realize it if you didn't see IT.
"It's personality driven with Caroline," Geno Auriemma said. "That's why, as much as you can, you try and recruit personality types. Her personality type allows her to play the way she's been playing after missing a year [because of her ACL injury in high school].

And now, here comes Holy Cross and all we can say right now about Doty is Holy Cow.
"She's the kind of kid who doesn't care what just happened. She'll just make the next one, the next play. She has a short memory, which all great players have."

- Mel, with an assistant from John Altavilla

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Greetings on this Wednesday.

First the Guru needs to clear the record concerning the background of young Valeria, the cashier on duty several nights at one of the Guru's late-nite diners.

After showing the shoutout on his blackberry in the previous blog, the Guru was told he was a little mis-informed.

Valeria is not from Romania. She is from Moldova, which is somewhere over there, but she speaks Romanian.

The Guru needed to do this quickly because she has requested his URL to monitor future comments on days she is not awake in the same weird hours to most of this readership.

The Guru offered Valeria a chance to tell the world a little of her impressions since arriving her and of her home country, but she gave her trademark response: "We'll see."

However, do not think she is too laid back.

When the Guru mentioned she could be useful as a translator when it comes time to interview Drexel's Gabriela Marginean, a native of Romania, for extensive story about the current No. 2 scorer in the country, Valeria quickly showed her grasp of the American economy by responding, "Ten dollars an hour."

The Guru wanted to negotiate rates based on paragraphs and word responses.

However, that could be dangerous once the two of them start talking.

Incidentially, can someone at Rutgers explain why when the Guru went searching for more information about Moldova at several sites, links to Scarlet Knights pages popped up.

Is someone on the coaching staff working on a secret pipeline?

Speaking of Rutgers, moving on to the story behind the headline, former Rutgers-Illinois-St. Joseph's coach and Immaculata star Theresa Grentz was the guest speaker at West Windsor, N.J., on Tuesday to help promote the NCAA regional at Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton next March.

The Guru got a brief scare on his arrival when some local bankers on the organizing committee approached him about a bailout.

It turns out, Grentz was a few minutes late making the long across the turnpike haul from Chester County where she is now a vice president of her alma mater.

"I don't know how it happened, I certainly didn't ask for it," Grentz said of her new position that was a quick promotion after her hire last year.

The native of Upper Darby entertained the audience, and said the movie about Immaculata "Our Lady of Victory," is still targeted to be released at Easter, also the time of the Final Four in St. Louis.

Much of what else Grentz had to say has been reported her before about her life-after-coaching.

She also offered a few inspirational thoughts.

Following the speech, Grentz emceed a fashion show of which most of the models were members of the Mercer County business community.

One, however, was Rider assistant coach Rashana Barnes, the former Penn State star from Philadelphia's West Catholic High, who was a member of the Nittany Lions 2000 Final Four contingent.

Barnes, known as a "quiet" individual in her day, showed she might have another career the way she appeared on stage twice in different sports apparel.

When she appeared quickly after modeling the first outfit, Grentz qupped, "Gee it usually took you longer to come out of the locker room at Penn State," recalling the former Big Ten wars between the Illini and PSU.

Looking ahead, the Guru will be at Temple late Wednesday afternoon for the Owls' matchup with Dartmouth on the front end of a doubleheader with the men.

-- Mel

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

Greetings all,

Mel is at the Rutgers-Temple game this evening, so while he's on press row I've got a few things to post from the desk.

We were both at the Big 5's Media Day this morning at the Palestra, which for the second year in a row was held on the eve of the first men's City Series game of the season.

The local women's coaches were also represented, and many gave remarks during the podium-based part of the program. In attendance were St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin, La Salle coach Tom Lochner, Penn coach Pat Knapp and Temple assistant coach Dan Durkin.

Durkin was standing in for Owls head coach Tonya Cardoza, who spent the morning preparing for the arrival of the No. 15 Scarlet Knights. Villanova coach Harry Peretta called in absent as his team re-adjusted to northern climes after playing in the Paradise Jam. Drexel coach Denise Dillon also was not present, because the Dragons are not a part of the formal Big 5.

I posted audio of the speeches over at my blog, Soft Pretzel Logic. You can listen to them by clicking on the first track in the media player at the bottom of the post.

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – When Temple meets No. 13 Rutgers (that number may change in a few hours) Monday night at the Liacouras Center two members of the Owls contingent will be at a different vantage point than in previous seasons when it comes to dealing with the Scarlet Knights.

Both new Temple head coach Tonya Cardoza and assistant Brittany Hunter were previously usually on the winning side at Connecticut in the Big East wars.

Hunter graduated after last season, having played for the Huskies three years after transferring from Duke.

Cardoza served 14 seasons as an assistant to Geno Auriemma. For that matter, a third Owl with Huskies DNA is grad assistant Stacey Nasser, who was a manager for four seasons.

But it will be up to the players to do most of the heavy lifting in an attempt to pull an upset that would get some quick national attention.

Until last weekend, Temple might have been in a good spot to catch its former Atlantic Ten rival asleep.

However, the youthful but extremely talented Scarlet Knights suffered a West Coast wipeout at California and Stanford that might have accelerated the learning curve legendary coach C. Vivian Stringer is needing to instill her newcomers.

Temple’s makeup will be a bit different than the Scarlet Knights faced previously when defensive-minded Dawn Staley was at the helm.

Cardoza has turned the team into an offensive force in the early going, most recently Saturday when Temple (3-1) romped over Hampton 79-50 in a nonconference home game.

Shanea Cotton posted a double double on the inside with 12 points and 13 rebounds, while LaKeisha Eaddy’s continuing transition to point guard stayed effective with 14 points and six assists. Shenita Landry had a game-high 16 points.

The other two wins occurred against Bowling Green and Illinois, two games considered tossups, at best, prior to the opener. The setback was a 95-76 romp at nationally-ranked Auburn when the Owls faded in the second half.

“I never doubted we would get it rolling,”:Cardoza said of the uneven start to Saturday’s game before Temple got a firm handle on the competition. “For the most part, we’ve been careless with the ball. But we’ve been shooting a great percentage with the ball.

“They didn’t have any real threats to guard us in the post.”

Cardoza got her first technical near the end of the first half when Temple was ahead by 11.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that,” she said.

As for the team’s progress to date, the Virginia graduate said, “I’d say we’re off a pretty good start. Of course, I would have liked to play better in the Auburn game to have given us a chance.”

When Temple starts to get on a roll in games like they have recently, Cotton said it takes a while to get a sense of what’s happening.

“I don’t really feel it until my coaches are smiling and the players are applauding and saying I’m doing good. I like doing well.”

If Temple can get a wide open high-powered style against Rutgers, it’s possible the night might have some intrigue.

“It’s a big test, but so was Auburn,” Cardoza said. “We’re going into every game like we’re trying to win, so they’re just another opponent in the way of the great things we’re trying to do this year.

“Our style is we want to get out and run and score as many points as we can in transition. So that’s what we’re going to try to do,” Cardoza said. “We need to take care of the ball. They’re a pretty good defensive team but if we take care of the ball and do a good job on the backboards we should be fine.”

Here Comes the Military

Coincidental to the Army-Navy football game this weekend in town, both schools will invade West Philadelphia Saturday within a few blocks of each other at two different sites in what might have been a neat doubleheader.

Navy visits Penn at 3 p.m. at The Palestra before Army visits Drexel, which is coming off of a neat upset of host Colorado in the Buff’s tournament. Gabriela Marginean scored 26 of her 32 points in the second half to lead the Dragons to a third-place finish.

Army’s visit marks to return of Philadelphia native Dave Magarity, coach of the Knights.

Delaware and DelleDonne to Face Oregon

The 64-team NCAA volleyball field, heading by unbeaten and defending champion Penn State, was announced, and the question now is will Vice President-elect Joe Biden stop by in the neighborhood Friday to cheer fellow Wilmington resident Elena DelleDonne and her Blue Hens teammates when Delaware meets Oregon in the first round at American University in Washington.

The CAA champions drew Oregon. If Delaware wins, the Blue Hens stay in the nation’s capital for a Sunday game against either American or North Carolina.

While DelleDonne was learning her volleyball postseason fate Sunday night, her good friend and would-be roommate Carolyn Doty of Germantown Academy lit up Oklahoma for 18 points as the freshman shot 6-for-6 from three-point land in Connecticut’s romp over the Sooners..

DelleDonne was the nation’s top basketball recruit last season, but later gave up her scholarship from Connecticut to stay near home and play volleyball at Delaware.

With the Blue Hens women’s basketball team on a three-game losing streak after winning the first two, maybe DelleDonne will catch the spirit of the Washington scene and consider a bailout by joining Tina Martin’s group after the volleyball competition concludes.

Big Five Showdown Thursday

In one of the key contests in the City Series, Villanova travels to St. Joseph’s home away from home at 8 p.m. Thursday night at Philadelphia University’s Gallagher Center.
Both teams have had some early season struggles but the Wildcats, with a loss to La Salle, need a win to stay alive in the hunt. It will be the Hawks’ first local tangle.

--Mel

(Guru's note: Here are more player blogs written in the last few days for the Associated Press' season series.).

UConn's Renee Montgomery

STORRS, Conn. - Today (Friday) is the day after Thanksgiving, and I'm having a hard time staying awake long enough to type this. Turkey has some serious side effects.

At this point we have played four games, all of them were at home except one. The one game that wasn't at home was all the way in Utah against BYU, and it made Storrs seem like Times Square.

Our coaches took us to an NBA game while we were there, the Chicago Bulls vs. the Utah Jazz. Coach Auriemma had four tickets down low, and the rest were upstairs.

To be fair he chose three names out of a bag to see who would get the seats close to the Jazz bench. Right when I heard the method of selection my hopes dropped and then the first name was pulled, it was Tiffany Hayes.

I'm thinking, "that's OK, there's still two tickets left." The second name pulled out the bag was Maya Moore. Now I'm starting to get worried and thinking of how I'm going to sneak down and get a good seat even if my name isn't chosen.

The last name was pulled, and I felt like I was on a reality show because of how long coach paused before he said the name.

The last ticket went to ... yep, you guessed it, Me! I started singing and dancing, not just to rub it into my teammates, but because "I had the golden ticket." That's Willy Wonka for those of you who didn't pick up on it.

Well the game was great, the Bulls won by one point on a last-second shot by Larry Hughes. I must admit, life is good.

Until next time ...

Renee Montgomery
-

Cal's Lauren Greif

(Written Wednesday)

BERKELEY, Calif. - Hello again from Lauren Greif (aka LG) and the California Golden Bears.

The colder weather of November has rolled in and teams across the country are now well into "game mode" - and this consists of scouting opponents, shorter practices and establishing game-day routines.

Game-day traditions are important because some of us - and this includes me - believe that winning and losing games can depend as much on how game-day rituals go as it does on how we play on the court. You know ... how can I be expected to focus on the game if I don't have my designated game-day spandex on?

Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but I do eat the same meal before each game (peanut butter and jelly), listen to Rascal Flatts, and always make a 3-pointer before I go to the bench before the game starts and before the second half.

As a team, we have a certain taping order with Ann, our trainer; Lex (Alexis Gray-Lawson) and Ash (Ashley Walker) have a special hand shake/salute they do when their names are announced as starters; Tasha (Vital) gets out on the court first before the game and shoots for 10 minutes with her headphones on, and of course we have an on-the-court warmup schedule.

I would tell you more of our team's little idiosyncrasies, but then I would worry that somebody would try to sabotage us ... got to protect the team and not embarrass ourselves too much!!!

As we get ready for our first road trip to the Virgin Islands (nice!), we also get a chance to work on our road routines. Trust me, you don't know who and what your teammates are about until you spend 72 straight hours with them (normal road trip time).

That means eating, sleeping, waiting in airports, choosing TV stations, dealing with wins and especially losses, and singing on the bus together - and it can make you either love your teammates or wish you had spent more time checking them out before signing! No joke!

Fortunately for me, I love my teammates and we really have a good time together. I trust them ... we are always laughing ... and I really respect each of them and the roads they've traveled (often different than mine) to get to Cal.

My coaches can be great fun too and I totally enjoy all the crazy things we come up with to keep busy on the road. And if all else fails, we can always get into a game of "Catch Phase" - and we are good!

So, yes, this is a direct challenge to any team out there - "catch phrase" or b-ball?

Either way, we are ready.

Happy Holidays and catch you later.

P.S. I have to send a shout out to all the great Bear fans who are filling Haas Pavilion and helping us win big games!!

Thanks ... and keep the love coming.

(Guru's note: Elena DelleDonne has made it to the NCAA tournament months ahead of schedule for herself and a certain former destination school a few hours South -- but not that NCAA tournament. The Blue Hens in an upset repeated as Colonial Athletic Association champs Monday night against top-seeded Northeastern. To give everyone their due besides the magnetic attraction one name draws here (she had 15 kills BTW), the following is the complete Delaware web site account. -- Mel

BOSTON, Mass. - Behind an incredibly gutsy performance and a never-say-die attitude, the University of Delaware volleyball team pulled off a thrilling 3-2 (25-21, 20-25, 28-30, 25-11, 15-13) victory over Northeastern in the Colonial Athletic Association title bout at Solomon Court.

Sophomore setter Jess Chason (at right) earned Most Outstanding Performer accolades after piecing together an amazing performance that guided Delaware (19-15) to the win. She led the Blue Hens with a career-high 59 assists and added 16 digs, three kills, and an ace to round out a phenomenal night.

Katie Dennehy and Steph Barry also provided outstanding performances, both making the All-Championship team. Dennehy set a season-high with 21 kills, while Barry added a match-high 25 digs and an ace.

With the victory, the Blue Hens advance to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season. Delaware is the first squad to repeat as CAA champions since George Mason won in 2002 and 2003.

“I’ve never been more proud of a team,” said head coach Bonnie Kenny. “Every bit of this, they deserved. They could have folded the tent a long time ago, but they just believed and kept training hard and knew they weren’t far off. This says a lot about the type of kids in our program.”

In such a close match, it seemed perfectly fitting that the contest went to a fifth frame. In the final set, the teams found themselves dead-locked at six before Delaware slowly pulled away. A kill and ace by Kim Stewart on back-to-back plays helped the Hens separate from the Huskies, before a four-point run buoyed by kills from Dennehy, Chason, and Elena DelleDonne, allowed the team to grab a 12-7 advantage.

Three points away from defeat, Northeastern (19-11) battled hard. A late five-point run, capped by two kills from Lauren DeTurk, pulled the Huskies within one at 13-12. DelleDonne answered the rally, blasting a shot to give the Hens set-point at 14-12. Although Northeastern held the team off for one rally, Stewart came through again. The freshman phenom fired one of her patented lasers into the Husky defense that clinched the victory and sent the Delaware side into a full-out frenzy.

Stewart was one of four Hens to notch at least 10 kills, finishing with 16 to go along with 17 digs and three aces. DelleDonne also blasted 15 and added three blocks, while Paige Erickson had 11.

“We really work hard together and give each other confidence on the court,” said Chason. “This whole entire time, we had this feeling and this energy, and we kept it rolling from Towson until now. We just ran with it.”

Early on, the match was just as tight as the end. Following a 4-4 draw at the outset of the match, Delaware took off on a four-point streak, capped by three straight kills from Erickson, Stewart, and Meghan Bonk. Despite its deficit, Northeastern refused to allow the Hens to pull away any further, winning seven of the next 11 rallies to pull within one at 12-11.

Bonk and DelleDonne responded with back-to-back kills, and following a Northeastern point, the two freshmen teamed up to stuff a Husky attack. Two kills by Erickson extended the Hens’ lead to four at 17-13. The team held that advantage until 22-18 when the hosts grabbed two straight leading to a Delaware timeout.

The Hens responded with their own two-point streak, highlighted by a block from DelleDonne and Stewart, to grab set-point at 24-20. Although the Huskies held the team off for one rally, Delaware got a clutch kill from Erickson to grab the opening-set victory at 25-21.

The second set looked promising early for the Hens as the team pulled out to a 4-1 lead following two kills by Dennehy and an ace from Chason. Although Northeastern knotted the set after orchestrating a three-point streak, Delaware pieced together a response.

In the middle of the set, the Hens won eight of the next 13 rallies. Two kills by Erickson and a block from Chason and DelleDonne gave Delaware a three-point edge at 12-9. Unfortunately, the lead was short-lived as the Husky attack went on an overwhelming run, led by four kills and an ace from CAA Player of the Year Lauren DeTurk. Eventually, Northeastern found itself up by six at 20-14.

Facing a considerable deficit, Delaware showed its steadfast resolve and refused to break. Two kills by Stewart and an ace from Greta Gibboney helped the Hens pull within three, and following a kill and block by Erickson, Delaware chipped its deficit down to two at 22-20. Despite the late resurgence, however, the Hens could not quite complete the comeback as Northeastern won the final three rallies to even the match with a 25-20 victory in the second frame.

As they had all night, the Hens got off to a quick start after the mid-match break. Chason opened the third set in fine fashion, setting the tone early by battling above the net for a free ball. Eventually, the sophomore setter out-muscled the Northeastern defender, winning the fight and driving both the ball and Husky to the floor.

Eventually, the team pulled out to an 8-4 lead after an ace by Barry and kills by Stewart, DelleDonne, and Erickson. As they continued to do, the Huskies answered, pulling even at 10 before jumping ahead by three at 16-13 following a trio of DeTurk kills.

Delaware responded in kind, winning three straight capped by a Stewart ace to retie the set at 16. The back-and-forth battle continued as Northeastern took a 22-20 advantage before the Hens knotted it two rallies later. The Huskies eventually earned their first set-point at 24-23, but Delaware continued to stymie the Northeastern attack.

Still holding their own, the Hens eventually won two straight rallies on a Husky error and Stewart blast to earn their own set-point at 28-27. Unfortunately, Northeastern wrote the final chapter of the set, using a block, kill, and DeTurk ace to clinch a 30-28 victory.

With no margin for error facing a two-sets-to-one deficit, Delaware saw the closely-contested match carry right over into the fourth frame with the teams battling to four early ties with the final one coming at six. At that point, Delaware took off. Kills by Erickson, Stewart, and Dennehy kicked off a five-point run that was later capped by a sizzling ace from Greta Gibboney.

Although a Sarah Stein kill snapped the streak, the momentum remained on the Blue Hen side. Delaware quickly put together another five-point roll, aided by three Dennehy kills and a Stewart service ace to grab a 16-7 advantage. With the imposing lead, the squad never let up. Dennehy came back with three more blasts, while Bonk added two others to help the team earn set-point at 24-11.

With the set on the line, the Hens turned to Stewart, and the freshman came through. Taking a beautiful pass from Chason, she fired a blast into the Northeastern defense to seal the 25-11 victory and send the game to the thrilling finish.

For Northeastern, Lauren DeTurk set a career-high with 28 kills in her final bout, while Britney Brown had a triple-double after recording 31 assists, 11 digs, and 10 kills. Brianna Seitz also had 12 digs and 10 kills for the Huskies.

The Blue Hens will find out their NCAA opponent next Sunday when the national bracket will be revealed on ESPNU with the show tentatively beginning at 10 p.m.

(Guru's Note: For those who think the Guru lost track, here is the top of the report from the Delaware web site)

BOSTON, Mass. – Katie Dennehy fired 19 kills while Elena DelleDonne tied a career-high with eight blocks to lead the University of Delaware volleyball team to a berth in the Colonial Athletic Association finals with a 3-1 (15-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-16) victory over Virginia Commonwealth at Northeastern’s Solomon Court on Sunday night.

In the finals scheduled for tomorrow at 7 p.m., the Blue Hens will square off with host and No. 1 seed Northeastern. The Huskies advanced to the championship match following a 3-0 victory over Hofstra in the earlier semifinal contest. It will be the third CAA finals appearance for Delaware after winning the title last season following a loss to Towson in 2004.

Along with her 19 kills, Dennehy (at right) hit a team-best .349 and chipped in with three aces, including two during a crucial run in the fourth set. Kim Stewart and Paige Erickson also had nine kills apiece, while Jess Chason continued her strong season with another double-double after posting 40 assists and 12 digs.

(Guru's notes: Print space limited the original roundup. Here's the enhanced version)

By Mel Greenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

PHILADELPHIA _ In a game of high emotions and low scoring between cross-town rivals, La Salle 48, Drexel 46 — Margaret Elderton hit two foul shots with seven seconds remaining to give the Explorers (3-1) the win over the Dragons (1-2) La Salle a 48-46 victory Saturday afternoon at the Explorers’ Tom Gola Arena.

“It’s a little nerve racking, but it’s an opportunity you look forward to,” Elderton said of her role as the heroine.

Gabriela Marginean had a game-high 19 points and 11 rebounds for Drexel (1-2), but she only scored five points in the second half. Morgan Robertson scored 13 points for La Salle (3-1).

Many players from both teams have gone against each other either in high school or in summer league competition in Northeast Philadelphia.

“It’s definitely emotional,” Elderton said of the rivalry. “And coming off a rough loss to Delaware we wanted to bounce back.”

Robertson, who is from Amarillo, Texas, has been one of the offensive leaders in the early part of La Salle's season.

"Morgan's a special player and a great player," Elderton said. "She's a workhorse and she's taking advantage of the opportunity she's getting to take control and so what she can.."

Robertson has had to help fill the void with the graduation of center Carlene Hightower.

"I worked really hard over the summer and with Carlene leaving, it's an opportunity step up. We're really focused on team unity."

So how does someone from deep in the hear of Texas land at La Salle.

"I just wanted an experience to live in a different part of the country and not everyone gets that," said Robertson, who added coach Tom Lochner's staff first saw her at an AAU tournament in Orlando, Fla.

"I get my education paid for and I live somewhere else."

Lochner spoke of the emotions involved between two local teams.

"It's a city game and neither of us got out in transition," he said. "We had to do everything in the half court. We did a good job of being aggressive and getting to the foul line and I thought we did a good job on holding Marginean down in the second half. We wanted to make the supporting cast step up and beat us. I just didn't think it would be in the 40s."

The Explorers were 17-for-24 from the foul line while Drexel was 3-for-5.

"The players know each other. We've played Drexel a number of years and it's like a Big Five game. It's important to both teams. Today we were fortunate enough to win," Lochner said.

"I've been happy with the effort the kids have given."

As for the Drexel's viewpoints, coach Denise Dillon said, "I told our players, we need hustle plays throughout the game. "They decided to play the last two minutes of the game. La Salle took advantage of the tempo of the game and on the foul line.

"I thought we took ourselves out of the game," she added. "We stopped executing and we stopped playing team basketball. And once we did that, we weren't a factor. We weren't on the same page and La Salle did a nice job, defensively, taking us out of that.

"It's always an emotional game. It's never a pretty game. You just do enough so you hope you can come up with a win."

xxx

Duquesne 78, Penn 45 — The Dukes (4-0) had 52 points in the second half to remain unbeaten. Carrie Biemer had 18 points for the Quakers (0-3) in Pittsburgh.

xxx

Buffalo 63, Delaware 45 — Tesia Harris had 19 points for the Blue Hens (2-1) in a loss to the Bulls (2-2) in Buffalo, N.Y. The Bulls, who lost to Holy Family at home in a preseason exhibittion game are coached by Linda Hill MacDonald who coached Temple in the1980s.

(Guru's Note: First Duke gets winded in Chicago. Now Rutgers gets overcome by fog indoors by the shores of the San Francisco Bay. Commentary to come after the weeked. But here's the Associated Press report from Northern California on all the gory details, unless one is a fan of the Bears.)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERKELEY, Calif. — Alexis Gray-Lawson and Co. kept piling on the
points and telling themselves the score was 0-0 to make sure they
pushed even harder. That way California could withstand a Rutgers
run, even though it never came.

For a team focused on finishing this season — finishing out big
games, that is — the Golden Bears did just that.

Gray-Lawson hustled all over the court on the way to 25 points,
nine rebounds and four assists and No. 7 Cal pulled off the biggest
home victory of fourth-year coach Joanne Boyle’s tenure with a 66-52
upset of third-ranked Rutgers on Friday night.

The Bears beat their highest-ranked opponent since a 74-65 win
over then-No. 2 Stanford in Berkeley on Jan. 10, 1992.

“Just a great game,” Boyle said. “I’m so proud of the kids. ...
We’ve talked, this year in particular, about finishing, finishing big
games. That was the theme. I was telling them how proud I am of them
and thinking ahead, ’Where could we be in March?”’

Ashley Walker added 16 points and 10 rebounds as Cal (3-0) won
its 32nd straight non-conference game in Haas Pavilion, pushing the
tempo for the entire 40 minutes against the sluggish Scarlet Knights
(2-1).

This was the program’s most notable victory since winning at
rival and then-eighth-ranked Stanford 72-57 on Feb. 4, 2007.

Once the final buzzer sounded, Cal’s players gathered at midcourt
for a group embrace.

This Bears team was short-handed, too. Cal had said it would make
game-time decisions on the status of injured centers Devanei Hampton
— the 2007 Pac-10 Player of the Year — and Rama N’diaye as both
recover from right knee surgery. Neither even dressed.

“It’s great to see this team work the way we work without Dev and
Rama,” Walker said. “Nobody would expect us to do what we do. We said
we’re going to fight and we’re going to sacrifice what we have to
sacrifice. We told each other we all had to bring a little bit more
to this game until we get our bigs back and I think we did that.”

Of Rutgers’ highly touted freshman class, April Sykes was the
only one who did much, scoring 16 of her 18 points in the second half
for cold-shooting Rutgers. Epiphanny Prince, who led the team in
scoring in the first two games as the Scarlet Knights averaged 84.5
points, was held to 15 points on 6-for-15 shooting and limited
because of foul trouble.

Trailing 30-20, Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer subbed all five
of her starters only about 2 1/2 minutes into the second half and Cal
answered with a 9-2 spurt to go ahead by 18, 40-22.

Kia Vaughn approached Stringer to go back into the game and the
intense coach then said something to the starters and sent them back
in with 15:24 remaining — but Cal’s run to start the half still wound
up at 22-2 for a 50-22 lead.

“The problem is the group we put in, they don’t have a clue,”
Stringer said.

The 28-point deficit was Rutgers’ biggest since it trailed by 41
in an 85-45 loss to Duke on Dec. 4, 2006.

Stringer held a long meeting with her team after the game.

“We’re a work in progress, believe me,” Stringer said. “If this
game serves to wake everybody up, it’s worth it. I’d lose by 50
points. ... Some of our freshmen thought this was going to be a piece
of cake. We got our heads handed to us. I’m not surprised.”

Vaughn began the game guarding Walker, who was coming off a
27-point, 17-rebound performance against Nevada on Sunday. Walker
still found ways to stay involved in the offense and didn’t force
things when swarmed by defenders.

Gray-Lawson, who has been working to contribute more with her
rebounding, hit the offensive glass at every opportunity to set the
tone early for the Bears. She sat down for good with 1:16 to play and
received a roaring ovation. Cal held a 36-28 rebounding advantage.

“I have been ready for this game for a really long time,” a
grinning Gray-Lawson said. “I’m at a loss for words. As soon as we
got that first stop, I said, ’Let’s go!’ I was so excited after that,
I was like, ’Let’s freakin’ do this!”’

Rutgers went scoreless for a 6-minute, 10-second stretch midway
through the first half and trailed 28-20 at the break. The Scarlet
Knights then went nearly five minutes without scoring in the second
half.

Cal came out mixing its defense between a 3-2 zone and a
man-to-man in an effort to force Rutgers to beat the Bears from the
perimeter. The Scarlet Knights began the game 4-for-14, committed
nine quick fouls and were outrebounded 12-5 in the opening 11 minutes
after holding a 17.5-rebounding edge over their opponents in the
first two games.

And this Bay Area weekend doesn’t get any easier: Rutgers plays
at No. 8 Stanford on Sunday. The Scarlet Knights began the 2002-03
season on the road at Cal and Stanford, losing 64-60 to the Cardinal
at Maples Pavilion on Nov. 22, 2002, despite a 22-3 run to start the
second half.

“We’ve got to really play or they’ll take our heads off,”
Stringer said. “We’ve got to play for respect.”

Rutgers’ players were eager to hit the practice floor Saturday.

“Sunday is coming very soon,” Vaughn said. “I told my teammates
that today, we need to learn from it. We can’t let it pull us down
and we can’t look back and dwell on it.”

Rutgers had won the three previous meetings against Cal,
including a 56-51 victory at home last Dec. 10.

Boyle still isn’t sure when Hampton or N’diaye will return.

N’diaye, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament in Cal’s
first-round NCAA game against San Diego in March, wasn’t expected
back until later this month or even early December.

Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz, good friends with Cal
coach Joanne Boyle, sat in the first row above the Bears’ bench and
gave Boyle a good luck high-five before tipoff.

(Guru's note: Here's the Associated Press report)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO — Lisa Etienne thinks she and Hartford caught No. 6 Duke
napping. They definitely caught the Blue Devils on an off night.

Etienne scored 15 points to help Hartford upset the sloppy Devils
53-51 in the first game of the DePaul Invitational on Friday night.

“I think they underestimated us because we’re Hartford,” Etienne
said. “I hope that people realize that they should take Hartford
seriously and we got more recognition that we are a serious
basketball team.”

Diana Delva had 12 and MaryLynne Schaefer added 10 for the Hawks
(3-0), who beat a ranked team for the fourth straight season.

Duke (2-1) had 26 turnovers and made only 17 of 64 shots. Chante
Black had 12 points and 13 rebounds, and Jasmine Thomas scored 12.

“We completely outplayed them in the last five minutes but didn’t
do anything in the first 35 minutes,” Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie
said. “It’s a great lesson for us. Either decide to show up and play
for 40 minutes or anything is possible. Certainly this game proved
that.”

Hartford has won 25 games or more and taken the American East
regular-season title the last three years.

Schaefer split a pair of free throws with 6.5 seconds left before
Black missed a layup at the buzzer.

“It’s definitely a big confidence booster for us,” Schaefer said.
“We knew that for us to take strides as a program, this game was a
great opportunity for us. So we just really came out with a mentality
that we deserve to be on this floor with them and we deserve to win.”

Schaefer hit two free throws with 24.8 seconds left to give
Hartford a 52-48 lead. After Etienne missed a pair of free throws,
Abby Waner hit a 3-pointer to cut the Hawks’ lead to 52-51 with 17.6
seconds remaining.

Erica Beverly found Schaefer on a back-door layup to give
Hartford a 50-46 lead with 1:04 remaining. Waner answered with a
jumper to get Duke within two with 46.6 seconds remaining.

Duke used a 9-2 run to cut the lead to 48-46 with 2:06 left.

Hartford led the entire first half as Duke struggled on offense.
The Blue Devils made just 6 of 24 shots while losing the ball 18
times in the first half.

Hartford led 22-17 at halftime after jumping out to a 16-6 lead.
The Blue Devils scored nine straight points but Hartford responded
with a 6-0 run.

(Guru's note: Here's another AP blog in the continuing season series. The AP will release them on Tuesday and Thursday and if the Guru forgets to look, he is certain to get a nice electronic nudge from his good friend in the home office.)

By Angel McCoughtry

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Today, I wanted to tell you about my wonderful family. Because without their love and support I could not do all the things that I do today.

They are the best support system anyone could have!

My dad is a pastor in Baltimore, which means my mom is a first lady. Baltimore is really a tough city so my dad goes to preach in the jail systems. He works with a lot of ministries, helping the community. My parents have been married for 23 years.

Now, many people might think it was my dad that got me involved in basketball but I actually owe that to my mom. She is the one who signed me up to play in a local league. After the first day I wanted to quit but she encouraged me to go back and try it again. The next day I had a lot of fun and the rest is history!

I am the oldest of three daughters. I have two sisters, Kristina and Joi. Kristina is 17 and is into fashion. She also loves to do hair as well. Joi is 12 and everyone says she is a mini me. We look alike and she also plays basketball. She wants to be like me so she said she is already committed to Louisville. I told her she is a little too young to be making commitments right now (LOL).

My family keeps me grounded and I love spending time with them. They try to come to a lot of games and I love seeing them in the stands.

My grandma Qunis Taylor had surgery on her knee a month ago because she wanted to make sure she was better in time to travel to the games. That meant so much to me that she cares so much.

I am very fortunate to be in a position that I am an inspiration to others. I like reaching out to the community and helping those that are less fortunate. When I have some time I want to go to the children's hospital and visit them. I also help out with a program in Louisville which helps battered women and their children.

Well I guess it's time to go.

The season is just beginning and I will have plenty of stories for you about my second family in the upcoming months.

Take care and God bless

- Louisville senior Angel McCoughtry

(Guru's Notes: Stephen K. Lee, who handled Rutgers on-site converage for the blog when the Guru was away from the scene, has graduated and is now on in internship at the Mobile Press-Register in Alabama. He filed this email to Guru central about a game he covered Thursday night between South Alabama and Southern Mississippi. Here's his commentary and then the story which we copied.)

It turned out to be a great game that came down to a tipped inbounds pass and free throws with 4.5 seconds left.

It was nice to get to cover a D-I women's game. It brought back some fond memories too.

Drumming up flashbacks of the many styles of play that I observed while covering Rutgers the previous two years, this game was like watching Villanova-type squad vs. LSU from a year ago.

South Alabama (similar to Nova) relied heavily on perimeter shooting with virtually no attempts at dribble penetration while Southern Miss (LSU-like) had decent guard play and kept going inside to its unstoppable 6-4 center. Strange that finesse beat inside aggression this time around. Not used to that.

- Stephen

South Alabama women's basketball edges Southern Miss
Friday, November 21, 2008

By STEPHEN K. LEE
Sports Reporter

Shakira Nettles hit two free throws with 4.5 seconds left to lift South Alabama to a hard-fought 66-64 win over Southern Miss Thursday night at the Mitchell Center.

"Basically, I had been missing all night pretty much," said Nettles, who had 6 points in the game's final 47 seconds and was 4 of 7 at the line. "I wasn't shooting well (5 of 16 from the field). I knew it came down to the line. I had to just stay focused, forget about the ones I missed and put them in."

The Jaguars (3-0) battled back from a 57-47 deficit in the game's final eight minutes to defeat the Golden Eagles (2-1).

"I think down 10 that they believed they had it in the bag at that point," USA coach Rick Pietri said of Southern Miss. "We just had to have some more fight. They were out-fighting us but the game wasn't over yet.

"We found some reserves inside of ourselves to fight back and made some big-time plays."
After Jessica Starling hit a runner down the lane with 8.2 seconds remaining to tie it 64-64,

Shaniece Brunner deflected the Golden Eagles' inbound pass and Nettles recovered the loose ball.

"Shaniece did a great job of getting her hands on the tip," said Nettles, who finished with 16 points. "I saw it and I reached for it and I knew I had a few seconds to do what I can. I pump-faked and (USM's Stephanie Helgeson) came down on me."

Starling carried the Jags for the majority of the game, scoring 10 of her game-high 24 points in the first half and swiping four steals to go with 10-of-19 shooting from the field.

"We had a lot of energy plays," Starling said. "We knew when we were down that, eventually, if we stick together, we're going to come back."

Southern Miss' 6-4 junior center Helgeson scored eight of the Golden Eagles' final 10 points of the first half, which ended with USA ahead 36-32.

In the second half, Helgeson, who led Southern Miss with 18 points and 10 boards, scored five points during an 18-4 run that gave the Golden Eagles the 10-point lead.

South Alabama hosts Mercer Monday at 7:05 p.m.

By Mel Greenberg

Here are signings announced Thursday by St. Joseph's and Temple, which in the Owls' situation represents the first two recruits in the Tonya Cardoza era. Also, the local print previews that ran in Friday's paper are now at Philly.com

St. Joseph's signings

Saint Joseph's women's basketball announced that Ashley Prim (Bridgeport, Conn./Kolbe Cathedral), Ashley Robinson (Warminster, Pa./Archbishop Wood) and Shelby Smith (Waterloo, Iowa/Waterloo West) have signed National Letters of Intent during the early signing period to attend Saint Joseph's University next year.

"We are very excited about the talented class coming to Saint Joseph's next season," said Saint Joseph's head coach Cindy Griffin. "All three of these student-athletes have competed at the highest levels of both high school and AAU competition and will bring scoring, athleticism and a high basketball IQ to Hawk Hill next year."

A 5-foot-8 guard, Smith transferred to Waterloo West High School after spending the previous three years at Des Moines East High School. A 2009 Sporting News Preseason Honorable Mention All-American, Smith set both the career and single-season assist records at Des Moines East. A First Team All-Conference and All-District player last season, she averaged 12 points, four assists and two steals per game as a junior. She enters her senior year ranked 52nd nationally among guards according to ESPN's HoopGurlz rankings.

"Shelby is a hard-nosed point guard who can stretch the floor," Griffin said. "She is a great decision maker and very good at attacking the basket and scoring."

Adding size and athleticism to the post position will be the 6-foot-2 forward Robinson. As a junior, she earned First Team All-State, First Team All-Southeastern Pennsylvania and First Team All-Catholic after averaging 13.9 points and 6.2 rebounds per game at Archbishop Wood High School. Both a 2009 McDonald's and Sporting News Preseason Honorable Mention All-American, Robinson currently ranks 32nd among power forwards according to Dan Olson's Collegiate Girls Scouting Report.

"Ashley Robinson is an athletically gifted player that gives us depth at forward and we expect her to make an immediate impact next season," Griffin said.

Helping Kolbe Cathedral High School to three straight Connecticut State Championships, Prim enters her final season with 1,139 career points to go along with 351 rebounds, 341 assists and 258 steals. A versatile player who can play both guard positions, Prim is a two-time Sporting News Honorable Mention All-American and has helped Kolbe Cathedral to a 4-7-5 mark over the past two seasons. As a junior, Prim averaged 13.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 3.0 steals per game on the season en route to First Team Connecticut High School Coaches Association All-State, All-South West Conference, and First Team New Haven Register and Hartford Courant accolades. A two-time MVP of the state championship game, she currently ranks 45th nationally among guards according to Dan Olson's Collegiate Girls Scouting Report.

"Ashley Prim is someone we see playing both guard positions," said Griffin. "She is a proven scorer and has a great feel for the game."

Saint Joseph's (1-2) will lose seniors Jenna Loschiavo and Mary Kate McDade to graduation in May 2009.

Temple Signingss

Temple’s first year head women’s basketball coach Tonya Cardoza has announced that Tiffany Davis (Hampton, Va./Hampton) and Victoria Macauley (Staten Island, N.Y./Curtis) have signed National Letters of Intent as members of the class of 2013.

“I’m really excited to welcome Tiffany and Victoria to the Temple family,” commented Cardoza. “Both are athletic and talented players that can score and defend well and I expect them to make an immediate impact on our team.”

A 5-5 point guard, Davis averaged 16.4 ppg last season and helped Hampton High School to a runner-up finish in the Peninsula District. She was named the Peninsula District’s Girls Basketball Co-Player of the Year and garnered First Team All-Virginian Pilot honors last season. The Crabbers’ leading scorer for the last three seasons, Davis had 18.3 ppg, 4.5 apg, 6 rpg and 4 spg as a sophomore to guide Hampton to a Group AAA Virginia State title. She was voted First Team All-State that season as well. Davis hails from the same area that produced former Temple point guard Cynthia Jordan (’05) and current assistant coach Waynetta Veney.

Macaulay, a 6-4 center, averaged 17.1 ppg and 10.6 rpg in leading Curtis to a PSAL A League Championship. The 22-8 Warriors lost in the New York State Federation Class A Tournament semifinals to perennial powerhouse Christ the King. Macauley led Staten Island in scoring and field goals made (180) and was second in rebounding. A First Team All-Staten Island pick by the New York Daily News, Macaulay also plays for the AAU team NYC Gauchos.

(Guru's notes: The Guru was on the scene for print at The Palestra for the narrow Villanova win over Penn. A general roundup is at Philly.com. Kathleen covered Drexel's win over St. Joseph's that will post at this site when she files and the guru has his laptop running.
Below is the latest in the ongoing series of player blogs for the Associated Press, which was written by Courtney Paris before Oklahoma beat Middle Tennessee.)

By Courtney Paris
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - Hey guys, it's me again, Courtney Paris. Promised I would check in again so here I am.

I was supposed to blog about the start of the season but I have been so preoccupied - well, kind of.

So here is the thing. I am addicted to my BlackBerry. Not to e-mails, not text messaging, not phone calls about nothingness. I'm addicted to Brick Breaker. Oh my gosh that game, I tell ya, is the owner of any free time my thumbs might have.

TK (assistant coach Chad Thrailkill), one of our assistants, had a BlackBerry two summers ago and bragged about how he had gotten 300,000 points and had 90 lives left. No way. I could not believe it and I did not have to because his phone miraculously broke before he could save it.

However, I'm competitive, so naturally every time I go on there I think, "Beat TK, get to 300,000." Crazy thing is, even if I got there and surpassed Coach Thrailkill, I will still be 7,251,110 points behind Umang Kanoria, who is currently at the top of the Brick Breaker leader board.

I am coming for you Kanoria!

Another thing about my phone though and is I get updates about women's basketball news and, man, there have been some strange things happening around the country with powerhouses going down.

I think personally it's a good thing for women's basketball. A little parity never hurts; in fact it shows how much our sport is growing (or how much Candice Wiggins and Candace Parker are missed).

We play Middle Tennessee next, and it should be a challenge not to be the next top team to fall. But right now all I can focus on is making sure my team is getting better every day, so that when the time comes to really do something special, we'll be prepared.

Now back to my game.

(Guru's note: On Wednesday, yours truly will be at Villanova-Penn and Kathleen will be at St. Joe-Drexel. Pennsylvania editions in print Thursday are getting a page of local previews of the Big Five, Drexel, and a DII-DIII roundup)

By Mel Greenberg

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – To give some perspective of No. 3 Rutgers’ 83-35 victory over nearby New Jersey rival Princeton Tuesday night at the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center, one might say the Tigers were held to a scoring pace that represented a point for every minute it took to travel north to get here.

The scoring distribution reading down the Rutgers side of the box score is not indicative of the rout that began from the opening tip.

Epiphanny Prince had a game-high 15 points, Wilmington’s Khadijah Rush, recovered from last season’s knee injury, added 11 points, and Kia Vaughn scored 10. The Scarlet Knights (2-0) dominated the boards, however, 47-28.

Princeton (1-1) got 10 points from Whitney Downs and seven rebounds from Cheryl Stevens.

The win was the final of a two-game early tuneup heading into this week’s trip to Northern California in which Rutgers will visit No. 7 California, Friday, and No. 8 (formerly No. 2) Stanford on Sunday.

Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer was pleased with more things than displeased, putting here ahead of the pace she normally operates this early in the season.

Plenty of praise came from the other bench in Princeton coach Courtney Baghart, who is in her second season.

“Rutgers is a very good basketball team,” Banghart said. “They are as good on court as they are on paper. They have a very good blend of experienced kids who have all gotten better under coach Stringer as well as five highly touted and talented all-Americans.

“I think they are one of the best teams in college basketball,” she added while later noting the contract is signed for a 10 year series between the two.

Asked to compare this year’s brand with the Rutgers group a year ago that Princeton extended at home until late in the game, Banghart responded,”I think they are deeper. Their rookies add a ton of athleticism at more positions, and Kia Vaughn is better than she was. She spent a lot of time in the off season getting her body in shape. That’s definitely a better team than the one we played last year.

“You wouldn’t know it, though, but we’re better, too.”

Banghart still expected her team to give Rutgers some difficulty.

“I think we had stars in our eyes,” the former Dartmouth star said. “I thought we would be better competitors than that. We played today like we had stars in our eyes and wanted Rutgers’ autograph.

“I need to do a better job instilling poise and competiveness that champions take. And we’re not there yet.”

Rutgers now looks to play on a bigger stage in terms of the national spotlight the next two games and Stringer expects by the time her team returns here for practice Tuesday her players will have some idea about their identity.

Prince said this group of McDonalds freshman all-Americans: Nikki Speed, April Sykes, Brooklyn Pope, and Jasmine Dixon, is doing much better getting acclimated to Stringer’s system than when her group arrived and suffered through November and December two years ago before reversing gears and bolting straight to the NCAA title game.

“The freshman that came in now, they’re thinking different than when we did,” Prince explained.

“Before, we couldn’t get the concept so we would get frustrated with it, my freshman class, and we wouldn’t try to do what coach Stringer was teaching us. We would try to outscore everyone.

“But the freshmen this year, they actually want to get it, and if they don’t know, they’re asking questions and that’s the difference.”

--Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Let's see, what were the odds a week ago that Stanford, Tennessee, and Maryland would each have a loss before Rutgers?

Thanks to Virginia's stunner at Tennessee Monday nigtht, that's exactly the situation with all three major national cross-sectional opponents on the Scarlet Knights' schedule.

The result of the defeats of Stanford and Maryland over the weekend paired with Rutgers' lopsided opening win over St. Joseph's propelled the Scarlet Knights from No. 5 to No. 3 in the latest Associated Press rankings Monday.

A win over St. Joseph's was not unexpected, but the relative ease over a veteran team that gave the Scarlet Knights a few fits in Philadelphia last season means that maybe youth won't be a handicap in the early going.

Another such test over a team that caused Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer to pop a few headache pills last season awaits Tuesday night when Princeton visits for an in-state matchup between two schools located a half-hour apart (when traffic is light) in New Jrersey.

True, in both instances a year ago, Stringer was busy making the B team the A team and vice versa against the first two opponents on this year's schedule.

But although Stringer doesn't look too far ahead, fans do, and something tantalizing lies just over the horizon.

After Tuesday night Rutgers heads to the San Francisco Bay area this weekend to visit California and Stanford.

The latter of the two offers a trip down memory lane to last season's opener when Rutgers lost in the last seconds on a tough foul call in Piscataway.

While Stringer focuses on just what's in front of her, she has excellent long-range vision when looking into the rear view mirror at things past.

And so it was earlier this month in Princeton that Stringer noted the Stanford loss as a contfributor to the Rutgers' pairing problems in last season's NCAA tournament.

She said how her team must take care of business right from the outset, even when many of us are allowing some bumps so the newcomers can adjust to her system.

Now should the Scarlet Knights do an imitation of the Democratic sweep of California, here's the dividend.

The wins could be impressive enough to lift Rutgers to No. 2. But even if the bounce doesn't occur, help is on the way from a Big East sister. Oklahoma, which moved to the runnerup spot, has a visit soon to Connecticut.

And, should Rutgers return back East in a good frame of mind, the door is open to a winning run straight to a visit from Tennessee when the New Year arrives.

And memories certainly do exist from the meeting between the two in Knoxville in February.

In fact, 1.3 seconds worth of memories.

So in what now looks like a major logjam in terms of early identification of Final Four contenders, statement time is the hands of Rutgers' kiddie corp, ready or not.

-- Mel

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

Looks like the upset bug hopped on a plane from Waco to Knoxville -- and this time, it struck the home team. Here's the AP report...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Monica Wright scored 35 points and Britnee Milner made a free throw with 6.4 seconds left to help No. 16 Virginia upset No. 5 Tennessee 83-82 on Monday night.

Trailing 80-75 with 1:44 left, Virginia (2-0) rallied. Wright made a 3-pointer and Whitny Edwards converted a steal to tie the game at 80.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

(Guru's note: Score one for the Guru who decided to stay at State College for the South Carolina game by driving here Sunday and landing in a preferred hotel that dropped from $250 the previous evening for football down to $72 under the "campus visitor" rate. There is a print account of the game at Philly.com. And now on to some tongue and cheek fun.)

By Mel Greenberg

Nothing like a few teams in the high rent district going over the ledge in week one to shake things up.

In fact, some participants in the recent Red-Blue national election game still looking for a fix anonymously forwarded the Guru their reactions to the results that saw both No. 2 Stanford and No. 3 Maryland get upset.

Some of the Guru's sports information friends think there's a Ciccone connection as in Natalie Ciccone who left Maryland for the Pac-10, the home conference of Stanford.

Meanwhile, a gentleman from Arizona offered: "They should suspend the season immediately to find a way to bail out Stanford before Rutgers visits next week."

And a woman from Alaska noted: "I'm through cooking moose stew. I'm going to start making turtle soup, actually, for now, that's mock turtle soup."

A gentleman from Wilmington who has worked in the Senate lauded Delaware's opening win after the Blue Hens suffered their worst record under Tina Martin a year ago in the wake of a number of graduated players.

"I've followed Elena DelleDonne ever since she was in grade school and knew she had the makings of turning the program around.

"What's that? She what? Oh, never mind. Sorry. I was a little busy running around the country since she said was switching to volleyball."

Was Barack Obama really the player to be named later to the nation's capital in the deal that brought Joe McKeown to the shores of Lake Michigan.Apparently the new Northwestern coach also wants to help the little guy How else does one explain the debut-ruining 76-69 loss to Chicago State. Talk about trickle-down, wait till that score echoes around RPI readouts.

Meanwhile, someone trying to find some words to cheer up a member of Dawn Staley's new staff after Penn State beat South Carolina in the season opener, offered, "Just write it down as a bad year for red states, especially when you come up here and try to beat a blue state."

You know change has occurred when UConn coach Geno Auriemma's picture appears twice in the first 21 pages of the Temple women's media guide and Staley's picture, with appropriate props, appears once in the history section back on page 64. For that matter, an unidentified Guru also outnumbers Staley 2-1 from a picture taken during the interview session last July when former UConn assistant Tonya Cardoza was introduced as Staley's successor.

As for the South Carolina guide, that's what the Temple guide used to look like.

Back in the day, Staley spent time working out on Hawk Hill when Stephanie Gaitley coached St. Joseph's.

Gaitley also switched jobs after last season, moving from Long Island to Monmouth. And in the wake of both moves, former Blackbirds star player Valerie Nainima of Fiji is now at South Carolina.

When Penn State plays in the Magie Dixon Classic in New York, the Nittany Lions may not last long against Connecticut but after the Guru got a tour of the renovation inside the Bryce Jordan Center, the Blue and White can claim a victory over the Huskies when it comes to comparing offices, if not salaries, between the two coaching staffs.

The last time a Van Chancellor-coached team fell out of the rankings, he ended up with a successful career moving over to the WNBA and the Houston Comets.

He'll stay put this time, but LSU may be history by the time the new AP poll is released on Monday afternoon.

The Tigers through the preseason poll had the sixth longest current ranking streak. Here's a look at the 11 teams who went wire to wire the previous two seasons and made it into the preseason vote.

Tennessee 416 over 25 seasons dating to the Feb. 4, 1985 poll.
Connecticut 278 over 16 seasons dating to the preseason 1994-95 poll.
Duke 168 over 10 seasons dating to the fourth poll of 199-00. Overall, with two misses, the Blue Devils have appeared in 250 of the last 252 polls prior to Monday.
North Carolina and Stanford (tied) 133, eight seasons, dating to the preseason poll of 2001-02.
LSU 117 over eight seasons dating to March 4, 2002.
Oklahoma 98 over six seasons dating to the preseason poll of 2003-04.
Baylor 88 over six seasons dating to the Jan. 5 poll of 2004.
Ohio State 79 over six seasons dating to the Feb. 23 poll of 2004.
Maryland 58 over four seasons dating to the preseason poll of 2005-06 when the Terrapins won the title.
Texas A&M 46 over four seasons dating to Feb. 06.

And with the idea that Rutgers could be No. 3 in this week's poll, there's no truth that coach C. Vivian Stringer will ask for a recount so her team can still be called an underdog when the Scarlet Knights travel to Palo Alto, Calif., ths weekend to play Stanford.

-- Mel

By Jonathan Tannenwald
Philly.com

Sorry I'm late with this, but here is Mel's schedule of all the games on his calendar this season.

It includes the Big 5 schools - La Salle, Saint Joseph's, Temple, Penn and Villanova - as well as Delaware, Rutgers, Penn State, and Drexel's men and women. As many of you know, Mel covers the Drexel men for the Inquirer as well as the women's game.

There are also assorted big national games for teams like Connecticut and Maryland that he might get to this season.

And if it's a blog post about Delaware and Connecticut, then I have to put the name Elena Delle Donne in there somewhere to get that spike in traffic.

Enjoy the new season, everyone. It looks like we've already had one quasi-upset, as AP No. 19-ranked Baylor knocked off No. 2 Stanford in Waco, Texas this afternoon.

(Guru's print story is at philly.com. Kathleen will be at St. Joe's Sunday, the Guru will be at Penn State, hotel prtofiteers on football weekend permitting)

PHILADELPHIA - Friday night, the Temple Owls won their home opener for the 2008-09 season against Bowling Green, 70-55 at the Liacouras Center.

It felt like a home opener: a rainy fall night in November, more turnovers than wanted, new roles for coaches and players, and most importantly, an updated play list for both the sound system and the roster.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” said Tonya Cardoza, the new head coach for Temple’s women’s basketball program. Cardoza was an assistant coach at the University of Connecticut for the past fourteen years and clinched five National Championships.

Now it’s her turn.

“I told the girls that they are crazy not to be nervous,” said Cardoza.

Cardoza comes to Temple with a very talented roster, despite graduating two top scorers last year, Ashley Morris and Lady Comfort.

LaKeisha Eaddy, ’10, is now the starting point guard, a position she is not used to playing but asked to fill-in after the graduation of Morris. Eaddy is quick and has a tremendous amount of energy. Within the first two minutes of the game, Eaddy had a block, two steals, and the first layup of the game. All of this followed by a three point basket, making the score 5-0.

With two fouls by Eaddy and the Owl’s lead expanding, Eaddy subbed out for the middle of the half. She finished the first half with ten points and three steals.

Eaddy quieted down more so in the second half, but still finished the night with sixteen points and three rebounds. Eaddy is a strong, physically fit player, but allowed turnovers to creep up towards the end.

Shenita Landry, ’08, had the complete opposite start to Eaddy. There were missed shots in the paint and at the post, unwanted turnovers, and just frustration overall. Nerves will do that. It’s senior year, and she is an exceptional player but more eyes follow her now.

Cardoza saw that frustration and kept her in. That is probably the best way to fix nerves, just play over them. Landry played the most minutes on the team and in turn, had a purposeful second half.

Landry was consistently strong with her boards, but in the second half her shots started to fall. She made three field goals, three-out-of-four free throws, 10 more rebounds, and two more blocks.

“I focus on going to the glass and working hard everyday,” said Landry. “I need to make the easy baskets and focus on getting better everyday.”

Landry wouldn’t be where she is today if she didn’t already have that kind of work ethic built in.

She had one turnover in the second half. Nerves tend to go away when baskets fall.

With a tough conference and challenging road schedule, Eaddy and Landry need to stay consistent with one another help with the season’s record.

Shanea Cotton, ’08, definitely has the same amount of presence on the court as does Eaddy and Landry. Cotton’s elbow may even need a jersey and number.

Tall, arms that reach to the ceiling of the Liacouras Center, and a powerful stance inside, Cotton finished the game with 12 points, three rebounds, and two very impressive blocks against Bowling Green’s offense.

One of the highlights of Cotton’s game was her attempting three’s, long jump shots, and forcing more turnovers. Cotton didn’t play long because of early foul trouble (it’s her elbow) and then later fouling out with four minutes left in the game, but for 21 minutes she played excellent basketball.

Cotton’s foul trouble could hurt Temple, but Cotton is making every effort to change her mobility and add strengths to her game.

Adding strength is the only concept the Temple bench understands and executes. Bench performance for the Owl’s was exceptional last night. The tempo did not change, the lead kept expanding, and onlookers learned some new names.

“We have so many good players, but we need that bench power,” said Cardoza. “They have to be explosive in their own play.”

A standout was Shaqwedia Wallace. Wallace doesn’t even have her name on her playing jersey. If she keeps playing as well as she did last night, she won’t need it.

Wallace is just a fun player to watch. In 21 minutes, she went four-for-eight from the field, three-for-four in three-point shots, completed both free throw attempts, totaled seven rebounds, and finished the night with 13 points.

Wallace presence off the bench is key for Temple to stay above 40 percent in field goals and continue Temple’s fast pace offense.

When asked if Coach Cardoza will sleep some tonight, she answered, “No, probably not.”

Temple travels to Alabama to play Auburn on Monday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.

By Mel Greenberg

Dawn Staley officially goes into the won-loss record book Sunday as the new coach of South Carolina when the former Temple mentor’s Gamecocks face Penn State in a season opener for both teams at the Nittany Lions’ Bryce Jordan Center.

“We’re going in with a young basketball team trying to find our identity and it will be a good environment to be in for me as a coach with our first game. What better way to do it than on the road,” Staley said in a phone call from Columbia, S.C., on Thursday.

Sunday’s affair will be a bit of a WNBA reunion.

Staley and Penn State’s Coquesne Washington crossed paths back in the day as rival point guards.

“I think we are students of the game,” Staley said. “We both played point guards. We did good jobs running our basketball teams. It’s a great story because we both love the game, we want to be around the game and it’s the best way to for us to continue our competitiveness that we have.”

Washington, who would like to see Penn State end a nasty little 12-game losing streak from the close of last season, is in her second year after serving as an associate head coach at Notre Dame.

Although Staley did not go against Penn State during her time at Temple, she has a history of a past rivalry with the Nittany Lions back in her days as an all-American at Virginia when both teams were battling for No. 1 in the weekly rankings in the early 1990s.

Staley made national news last spring, leaving Temple after an eight-year run to take a $150,000 pay hike to $650,000 and try to revive South Carolina’s worth in the Southeastern Conference.

“I think I’m in a tougher spot than I was with our Temple team back in 2000,” recalled Staley in stepping into the coaching profession after turning down the Owls when she was first approached by school officials.

“We will take it game by game, and that’s the way we did it at Temple,” Staley continued. “We want to play in the postseason. We still want to win our conference. It would be an incredible feat to do that. And we’ll slowly but surely work our way toward that.”

Staley’s new team was picked 10th in the SEC preseason poll.

“For now, we’re playing an underdog role,” she added.”It’s a tough league to play in but that’s one of the reasons I came here to take on a challenge of coaching in a league like this.”

Ironically, South Carolina is the 17th game on Tennessee’s schedule, a number circled because Vols Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt needs 17 career wins to reach 1,000.

However, with national player of the year Candice Parker and four other starters from last season’s NCAA champions departed, Tennessee is not likely to be 16-0 prior to its game with the Gamecocks.

Staley seems to have everybody on board with her vision down South.

Soon after practice opened last month, football coach Steve Spurrier’s wife Jerri(CQ) led the players and coaching staff through a rugged 30-minute ab workout.

“Although they won’t admit it, I think it was their favorite part of the preseason,” Staley wrote in her blog of her players’ reaction to the drill.

Staley has also turned heads in Columbia by getting doors opened on recruiting visits by such highly prized high school sensations as Kelsey Bone, a 6-foot-3 post player out of Stafford, Texas.

“We’re recruiting some of the same people we were at Temple,” Staley related. “Certainly we’ve gotten inside some doors. But it doesn’t mean we’ve gotten (recruiting targets) yet to pull the trigger. But in due time. When we get an entire year of people knowing where South Carolina is and what we have to offer, we’ll be catching up to where we need to be.”

Freshman Miranda Tate, out of Chicago, got released from her Temple commitment to follow Staley to South Carolina.

Staley feels if any business was left unfinished at Temple, it was the inability to get the Owls to the next level into the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16.

Prior to her arrival in 2000, Temple had not enjoyed winning records in a decade.

The graduate of Dobbins Tech High expressed confidence that Tonya Cardoza, her good friend and former Virginia teammate, will succeed in moving Temple forward.

Cardoza had previously been a longtime assistant at Connecticut.

“Tonya’s going to have some great days,” Staley said. “Her kids are going to play hard for her. But she’s going to have some days in which she’ll see why she’s there. It is not going to happen overnight.

“She brings a different kind of experience with the national championships at UConn, so hopefully she’s the one who can get the program where I envisioned it,” Staley said.

South Carolina will see No. 2 Stanford and No. 1 Connecticut in December, games that were already on the schedule.

The Staley coaching staff consists of longtime associates Lisa Boyer followed her from Temple, while Carla McGhee, who also served a year at Temple, and Nikki McCray, are Tennessee alumns who were teammates on past Olympic squads.

“Maybe we’ll learn a few secrets to beating Tennessee by having them with us,” Staley jested.
Cynthia Jordan, Staley’s first Temple recruit, is also involved, while basketball operations director Angie O’Neal was a manager when Staley was at Virginia.

Staley spent last summer as an assistant to Anne Donovan with the gold-medal winning United States squad in the Olympics. Having previously earned three Olympic gold medals as a player in a long association with USA Basketball competition, many feel Staley is the favorite to become the next head coach for the London Games in 2012.

But first, the criteria must be altered from the current requirements that the position be filled from the WNBA head coaching ranks.

There’s no rush because the United States will not be involved in qualifying competition next summer.

A USA spokeswoman said that first the new members of the governing body must take office before changes occur.

She also noted that she had seen requirements change in every four-year span since she joined the organization in the mid-1990s, so it would not be unusual for another revision to occur to make Staley eligible.

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Judging by the early listings on which teams did well on signing day Wednesday, the first dividends have arrived on investments a year ago when former Notre Dame associate head coach Coquese Washington was hired at Penn State and former Rutgers associate head coach Jolette Law was hired at Illinois.

Both schools struggled last season, but the heartbreak of narrow losses, especially at Penn State, which finished with a 12-game losing streak, has now been tempered by some joy.

Illinois was listed fifth at Blue Star's site, and Penn State seventh, while the Illini were tabbed third in the early ranking at HoopGurlz at the espn.com site.

This means the proverbial light is ahead at the end of the tunnel at places where a new generation of head coaches replaced two legends and former Immaculata teammates in Penn State's Rene Portland and Illinois' Theresa Grentz.

Adding to the new generation approach, that contract extension given to Joanne Boyle at California resulted in the Golden Bears getting the No. 1 nod at Blue Star.

Don't cry for Rutgers, Tennessee, and Connecticut not being near the top. They are still getting their nuggets. But with huge harvests a year ago, there were not a lot of roster spots to offer the next time around, giving other programs, such as Texas A&M, to cash in on their recent successes.

Another Contract Extension for St. Joseph's Cindy Griffin

The official announcement is being made Thursday but Guru Central learned that St. Joseph's has given former Hawk guard Cindy Griffin a three-year extension through the 2011-12 season.

Financial terms were not disclosed and the Guru will not guess at dollar values except to believe Griffin, who was hired at her alma mater in 2001, is among the upper third in Atlantic 10 salaries.

The Hawks open at No. 5 Rutgers Friday night at 5 p.m. in a game that is lopsided in blue chip talent in favor of the Scarlet Knights. But St. Joseph's scrappy style has given fits to the former Atlantic 10 rival over the years, especially last season in a game that Griffin's team extended into the final minutes.

The fact that St. Joseph's is more veteran could cause some concern to Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer considering she is still trying to harness her freshmen into the system.

Griffin is entering his eighth year as Saint Joseph's head coach in 2008-09 and owns a 176-125 career record, and a 128-92 mark at Hawk Hill. During her first seven seasons at SJU, Griffin has led the Hawks to five postseason berths, four in-season tournament titles and four victories over nationally ranked teams.

Later this month, Griffin will go down memory lane when the Hawks travel to Vanderbilt where she once served as an assistant to her former Hawks coach Jim Foster, now at Ohio State.

New Big East Commissioner

John Marinatto will succeed Mike Tranghese as commissioner of the powerful Big East, being elevated from his current role as senior associate commissioner.

The new commissioner, who will take over in June after Tranghese's departure, has always been on the scene at major conference women's competition and member participation in postseason tournaments in case anyone was wonder whether some cracks might appear in the women's empire that developed in the Big East in recent seasons.

Making the Rounds

The Guru was at Temple practice Wednesday to advance the Owls' Friday night home opener under new coach Tonya Cardoza for Friday print editions. Former coach Dawn Staley will be checking in Thursday for a story to run print-side Sunday when South Carolina opens at Penn State.

Traffic permitting, the Guru will first head to Villanova Friday for a 4 p.m. season and Big Five opener between the Wildcats and La Salle.

The Guru has also completed his annual planning schedule, which will be sent to Jonathan to post here. It is a combination of our local D-1 majors plus other games the Guru has interest but needs to see where conflicts appear.

More to come

-- Mel

(Guru's note: Off the success of players blogging during last season's NCAA tournament, the Associated Press will continue the exercise through this season. Having been alerted by Doug Feinberg, here's the starting group -- Mel)

Players perspectives around women's basketball

STORRS, Conn. (AP) -- Hello everyone! We had our first game the other day, and it felt so good to get out there and play again. Preseason was great this year. Our UConn team was split into four teams of 4, the team names were Salt and Peppa, Gazelles, 2%, and Bomb Squad. I'm sure you are wondering where these names came from but maybe I will explain that another day. The four seniors picked the teams - playground style.

Every Friday these four teams competed in a challenge. The challenges were things such as flipping big tires, urging (if you don't know what this is, consider yourself lucky), running through obstacle courses, tug of war, etc. At the end of six weeks, which is the length of a preseason, the team with the highest point total won. The winners of the preseason competition were Salt and Peppa, and the members of this team were Matt Gade, our head manager, Tina Charles, Meghan Gardler, and yours truly. Our coaches presented us with a framed collage of pictures, and I'm not going to lie, I felt like I had won a real championship.

Now that I've told the lighter side of preseason, I guess I should mention that we didn't just have challenges for six weeks. During the week we would condition by running Cemetery Hill (the name alone should let you know something about its level of difficulty), stadiums, sprints, and anything else Amanda Kimball, our wonderful strength and conditioning coach, could think of. Well that wraps up my preseason, it was great, but now that the games are starting the real fun begins. Thanks for listening.

- Connecticut senior Renee Montgomery

NORMAN, Okla. - Hey "y'all," I'm Courtney Paris and, in case you don't know, I play for the University of Oklahoma, which is where I've picked up my new dialogue.

I'm a senior in journalism and I am excited about finishing my last year of college with my twin sister, Ashley. Time has flown and then dragged. I feel like I've been here forever, yet I can't believe it's almost over.

I've done a lot in my college experience - milked a cow, had my first job, bought a home, paid bills, broken records, been challenged on and off the court and met some pretty incredible people.

There's only two things left for me do as a Sooner and those are complete my degree and help lead my team to a national title.

I feel like I have a good chance at getting both.

I'm probably most known to for my double-double streak and while I don't want it to end, one streak I want over is going to the Final Four by myself. This year I want to be in St. Louis with my team. And playing!

- Oklahoma senior Courtney Paris

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Hello, my name is Angel McCoughtry and I am a senior forward at the University of Louisville. I am from Baltimore, Md., and enjoy spending time with my family. My team is my second family and we have a great time together!

When I was first recruited by the University of Louisville I had no idea where it was located. Once I got there I loved the campus and people and I ended up choosing Louisville because I wanted to help make them a national power in women's basketball. Last year Coach Walz came to Louisville and helped us to reach our goals with our first Sweet 16 appearance but we aren't done yet.

Expectations are high this season and I can't wait to get started because we have a great team returning and added a lot of talent this year.

- Louisville senior Angel McCoughtry.

BERKELEY, Calif. - Hey, all you basketball fans. This is Lauren Greif from the Cal women's basketball team and I am excited to be letting you in on some of the behind the scenes action and drama of college athletics and my Cal team throughout the season.

I would like to start by thanking November for finally showing up because, as every college basketball athlete or fan will tell you, the games are exceedingly more fun than the hours and hours of practice. There is no way around it sorry, coach! Our team, as well as the teams from nearly 1,300 Division I, Division II, Division III, and NAIA programs, have been beating up on our own teammates for months. Now, we can finally take out our frustrations with the tedium of practice and put our coaches' yelling to good use, playing other teams. And, if all goes according to plan for us here at Cal, we will be playing others well into March and April!

- California junior Lauren Greif

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — It's that time of the year again! Yes, the most wonderful time of the year!

No, I don't mean Christmas, but college basketball season!

The time of the year when whistles are a basketball fan's equivalent to jingle bells and the squeaking of shoes on the court are way better than any holiday song. Preseason has come and gone (thank goodness) and practice so far has consisted of, "missed block out! on the line!", "middle drive! on the line!" and "no communication! on the line!"

You know, the typical scene for any team's initial weeks of practice.

The anticipation for this season has been like no other for me. As a senior, there is a newfound sense of urgency and determination. It is going to be a great season for the Terps and Terps fans, so get ready! You are in for a show!

So, I am going to need your help. Like many things do, this blog has become a friendly or not-so-friendly competition between my best friend Abby (Waner) and I. (We did not speak for more than two weeks this summer because of a little comment I made about beating her Duke team in the 2006 National Championship game, so you be the judge whether this is a friendly competition or not).

From what I hear she set the standard pretty high with her blogs last year. I am pretty confident that I will give her a "run for her money."

Well, at least I think so.

My "Turtle IQ" could be clouding my judgment. This is where your assistance comes in. All e-mails, letters, phone calls letting me know my blogs are better will be greatly appreciated.

I cannot leave without mentioning the historic election that just passed. Wow! This was my first time being able to vote and what better an election than this one to be a first timer.

I woke up at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, as I wanted to be one of the first in line and have the full voter experience. It was so obvious that I was a rookie voter. I brought every form of identification I had as well as my voter registration verification. This was even after my Dad ensured me that I did not need everything I was bringing.

Hey, I did not want to risk not being able to vote in this historic election!

After I cast my ballot I checked it probably about 50 times to make sure I did not hit a wrong button or read something wrong. I walked away like a little kid with a huge smile on my face, finally realizing what it means to be a part of something bigger than me.

Regardless of whom anyone voted for, we made history and that is something to be proud of!

— Maryland senior Marissa Coleman

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — With the 2008 presidential election coming to a close, 'change' seems to be a key word.

Not only is change happening for America, but change is happening for the Purdue women's basketball team. The style and tempo of our game will be changing this season due to a change in personnel.

I am a fifth-year senior, back from an ACL injury. We have four starters returning, plus Jodi Howell returns from a shoulder injury and a top-10 freshman class.

Our team is expected to do great things this season and only three weeks into practice, I feel as though we are on the right path. We are bonding well on and off the court. Coach Versyp is a big believer in team-building exercises, so we've already navigated a corn maze (this is Indiana after all) and played 'Would You Rather.'

We will be put to the test on Dec. 9 when we have our first exhibition game. You'll have to check back with me later to see if we're living up to expectations.

— Purdue senior Lindsay Wysdom-Hilton

EL PASO, Texas — I'm Jareica Hughes, the 5-foot-4 point guard and 2007-08 Conference USA player of the year from UTEP. I'm really excited about starting the year and appreciate all of the looks and attention both myself and UTEP is receiving.

We don't have too much free time right now, with handling practices and dealing with classes, but it's still going pretty well. We've done a lot of conditioning, trying to get into shape. We start our season Friday against Kansas State, which is one of the best teams in the country right now.

We're really excited to play them.

After getting more recognition last year with going 16-0 in C-USA, 2008-09 is going to be a brand new challenge for us. We want to play real hard and do the best that we can do.

Seeing my name mentioned by different people across the country is such a blessing. I'm very honored to have that. I've put in a lot of work, and it is starting to pay off.

I look forward to keep working hard and having a great season.

— UTEP junior Jareica Hughes

(Guru's Note: - As we move toward the start of Friday's openers, here's the first in a series of AP poll performance through last week's preseason poll -- Mel)

By Mel Greenberg
The Philadelphia InquirerQuick hits on AP poll (week 1 for coaches’ appearances week No. 1)

(This is 557th poll after week 1). (Records on pages through Preseason, 11/01/08)

Coaches With Three Ranked Teams

C. Vivian Stringer (Cheyney-85), (Iowa-155), (Rutgers-137), 377
Jim Foster (St. Joe-35), (Vanderbilt-164), (Ohio St.-96), 295
Gary Blair (Stephen F. Austin-79), (Arkansas-67), (Texas A&M-45), 191
Marianne Stanley (Old Dominion-141), (Southern Cal-24), (Stanford*-18), 183
Lin Dunn (Miami-2), (Mississippi-1), (Purdue-130), 133
Don Perrelli (Northwestern-52), (S. Conn.-20), (St. John’s-1), 73
Sharon Fanning (Kentucky-4), (Miss. St.-46), (Tenn.-Chattannoga-4), 54
Tom Collen (Colorado St.-34), (Louisville-17), (Arkansas-2), 53
Debbie Yow (Florida-2), (Kentucky-21), (Oral Roberts-1), 24

Co-Coaches

Kittie Blakemore, Scott Harrelson – West Virginia 8
Sonja Hogg, Leon Barmore – Louisiana Tech 51
Jill Hutchison, Linda Fischer – Illinois St. 3
Jim Jarrett, Joyce Patterson – Georgia St. 1
Marianne Stanley, Amy Tucker – Stanford 18
Jim Bolla, Sheila Strike – UNLV 18

Coaches All Time Ranking Appearances

1. Pat Summitt, Tennessee – 543 (missed just 14 polls in entire AP history)
2. Andy Landers, Georgia – 431
3. **-Jody Conradt, Texas – 395
4. C. Vivian Stringer (3 schools – Cheyney, Iowa, Rutgers) – 377
5. Tara VanDerveer (2 schools – Ohio St., Stanford) – 351
6. **-Rene Portland (2 schools – St. Joseph, Penn St.) – 336
7. Kay Yow, North Caro. St. – 326
8. **-Leon Barmore, Louisiana Tech (51-shared with Sonja Hogg) – 325
9. Geno Auriemma, Connecticut – 311
10. Debbie Ryan, Virginia – 296
11. Jim Foster (3 schools – St. Joseph’s, Vanderbilt, Ohio St.) – 295
12.**-Joe Ciampi, Auburn – 290
13. **-Sue Gunter (2 schools – Stephen F. Austin, LSU) – 270
14. **-Joan Bonvicini (2 schools – Long Beach, Arizona) - 267
15 **-Marsha Sharp, Texas Tech – 264
16. Sylvia Hatchell, North Carolina – 261
17. Van Chancellor (2 schools – Mississippi, LSU) – 242
17. Gail Goestenkors (2 schools – Duke, Texas) – 242
19. **-Chris Weller, Maryland - 227
20. **-Theresa Grentz (2 schools – Rutgers, Illinois) – 225
21. Gary Blair, (3 schools – Stephen F. Austin, Arkansas, Texas A&M) – 191
22. **-Marianne Stanley (3 schools – Old Dominion, Southern Cal, Stanford*) – 183
23. **-Paul Sanderford (2 schools – W. Kentucky, Nebraska) – 182
24. **-Marian Washington, Kansas – 176
25. Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame - 160
**-Not in college or not in as a head coach

Active Coaches-All Time AP Ranking Appearances

1. Pat Summitt, Tennessee – 543 (missed just 14 polls in entire AP history)
2. Andy Landers, Georgia – 431
3. C. Vivian Stringer (3 schools – Cheyney, Iowa, Rutgers) – 377
4. Tara VanDerveer (2 schools – Ohio St., Stanford) – 351
5. Kay Yow, North Caro. St. – 326
6. Geno Auriemma, Connecticut – 311
7. Debbie Ryan, Virginia – 296
8. Jim Foster (3 schools – St. Joseph’s, Vanderbilt, Ohio St.) – 295
9. Sylvia Hatchell, North Carolina – 261
10. Van Chancellor (2 schools – Mississippi, LSU) – 242
10. Gail Goestenkors, (2 schools – Duke, Texas) – 242
12. Gary Blair, (3 schools – Stephen F. Austin, Arkansas, Texas A&M) – 191
13. Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame – 160
14.Wendy Larry, Old Dominion – 144
15. Sherri Coale, Oklahoma – 137
16. Kristy Curry (2 schools – Purdue, Texas Tech) – 124
17.%%- Joe McKeown (2 schools – New Mexico St., George Washington) – 116
18. Kim Mulkey, Baylor – 113
19. Melanie Balcomb (2 schools – Xavier, Vanderbilt) – 112
20. )))-Chris Gobrecht (Washington) - 104
21. Doug Bruno, DePaul – 99
22. Bill Fennelly, (2 schools – Toledo, Iowa St.) – 96
23. Joanne P. McCallie (2 schools - Michigan St., Duke) – 91
24. Brenda Frese (2 schools, Minnesota, Maryland) – 83
25. Debbie Patterson, Kansas St. – 77
26. &&-Jim Bolla, UNLV* – 75
26. Pam Borton, Minnesota – 75
28. Kurt Budke (2 schools -Louisiana Tech., Oklahoma St.) – 59
29. Charli Turner Thorne, Arizona St. – 55
30. Sharon Fanning (3 schools – Tenn.-Chattanooga, Kentucky, Miss. St.) – 54
31. Tom Collen, (3 schools, Colorado St., Louisville, Arkansas) – 53
32. Elaine Elliott, Utah – 52
32. ***-Kathy Olivier, UCLA 52
34. Harry Perretta, Villanova – 44
35. Joanne Boyle, California – 37
36. ++-Bonnie Henrickson, Virginia Tech – 36
37. Lisa Stockton, Tulane – 34
38. $$$- June Daugherty (2 schools – Boise St.,Washington) – 32
39. Don Flanagan, New Mexico – 26
39. () - Dawn Staley (Temple) – 26
&&-Active at Hawaii (Shared 18 with Sheila Strike); ++-Active at Kansas; )))-Active at Yale; $$$-Active at Washington State.; %%-active at Northwestern; ***-active at UNLV; Active at South Carolina

(Guru's Note: The print section offer in the Inquirer in Philly.com has two stories by your Guru off the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday in which Rutgers' women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer addressed the group as part of the buildup for the NCAA Trenton Regional in March.

Since print space considerations limited the full answer, the Guru now brings that to you in its entirety. Meanwhile, the Guru after this posting must go home for some quick sleep and determine his wardrobe for his acting debut in a pilot being shot for a TV show involving the sports department. You can't make up some of the stuff that goes on around here. -- Mel Greenberg

Remarks by Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer on Barack Obama's election.

Guru: What were you feeling at the moment that TV declared Barack Obama president elect.

Stringer:

"Wow, I have to tell you (pause quiver)

"I cried a lot (she says in a teary voice) because I didn’t even realize -- I’ve seen so much, I’ve been hurt, like a lot of people, and I couldn’t figure out why I was nervous all day (Tuesday, voice steadies a bit)

"I was nervous, I couldn’t understand, why was I anxious and then, you know, and then I wasn’t satisfied until I got home.

"And then, ah, when I heard he was president, it was something I thought that I would never see, I didn’t realize that I had so much emotion, so much hurt, but I was so proud of him, how proud of America, proud of all people, cause I think he was able to touch, ah, he was able to touch, ah, the hearts and minds of everyone.

"And it was good to see the person was judged by the content of the character than the color of their skin. I think it is hard to imagine this.

"I cried with Colin Powell. I cried with Jessie Jackson, you know, I saw all of that (history).

"It’s been going on way too long. And so when I just cried and cried so hard, and I was telling my mom that I grew up in Pennsylvania.

"And as I expressed initially in my book, I didn’t even think a president -- because we weren’t allowed to talk about it. And there were very few minorites there so I didn’t even known that was existing.

"But my eyes were opened the longer I lived, when I went to college, and then got a job, and started teaching and coaching at Cheyney University -- I saw it all.

"So quite honestly, it was just the biggest cry, and the greatest relief, and the best sense of, We’re going to be OK as a nation.

"Because I’m seeing grown men -- black and white -- cry. I’ve never seen young people and old people in all colors come together as one, and it confirms — I was saying to coach Chaney when I talked to him in the hospital before I came here -- this man (Chaney) has been doing what Obama has been doing, but he’s been doing it on the basketball court, because he’s talked about and given respect to everyone from the manager -- the manager is just as important as the star basketball player and you guys know that.

"And I think what Barack was able to do was to touch the very essence of what we all are as human beings.

"We just want to have respect. You just want to have love. You just want to have opportunity.

"This man (Obama) got beyond the elitism that has been a part of this country and he began to talk about what --

"No one wants to receive anything. Everyone wants to feel that they are worthy. And he respected every living body.

"I listened to him -- he exemplified the Christian principles of when things got rough and he was called names, he turned his head and he offered nothing but love.

"But what was important about that is there are far more better good people in this world than there are evil people.

"And I was so encouraged by that.

"And I thought, ‘My goodness.’ My sons will now see a man and there’s no reason why they can’t believe they can become president.

"See most of you in this room might not have even thought about that.

"But how do you talk about soomething that has never been.

"How do I tell my young men, my sons, they can become president. They’ve never seen it. You know?

"And so when I say and I see that I thought the nation needed to give Barack to these young people because they need to be unified.

"We have too many problems in this country. They need to have hope and they need to have love and they needed to believe.

"All the predjudices from before -- and see I don’t like the idea they come up with age groupings, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think you need to be -- you have to know where your mind is and where your heart is.

"And so I get beyond that. If I was 90 years old, I know who I would be.

"And if I fit into the category of those young people who are free and independent thinking, then that’s who I would be. So I’m not one to be categorized.

"But all of us have been touched.

"And I say to my mother the next day, because her religion doesn’t allow her, she won’t vote, I said to her, ‘Ma. Do you realize that Obama was elected?’

"And she was, ‘I followed this with everything I could. And I was so excited about it. You know you once told me when I was a little girl, you sat in a movie and some policemen took you out of the movie and made you sit up in the balcony.

"And I never told you this before, but it hurt me. I was hurt. And she wasn’t respected and she should have been.

"She said ‘You never said anything about -- ‘ And I said I know. I was hurt but I couldn’t do anything about it.

"I said, ‘But you know? That’s all over. It’s OK. ‘

"I think that whether you’re Indian or Mexican or whatever, everybody knows they are worthy.
And more than anything else than I can think of, I’ve never seen one issue that the people understood. ‘Yes we can.’ Together.

"Because I think so many things have been happening in this country that we felt -- we just passed it by. We said, ‘Look. That’s what they do in politics.’

"And that’s the time when you stand up.

"And I had an opportunity to speak to Oprah Winfrey. And she said to me, ‘But he’s the one. It doesn’t matter if I lose my ratings or anything else, it just doesn’t matter.

‘Because there comes a time in everyone’s life when you must stand up for the things you know to be right.’

"And so, as I said to my mom, I’m so happy because I know that my sons and their wives and their loves ones -- they’re going to make the world a better place.
I
"’m just happy to be an American because not only because he is a black man but because he happens to be black. And he’s a brilliant man. A passionate man. And he tends to reason just on the side of common sense.

"And he’s allowed us to be good human beings again. He said it’s OK. And I think that the embrace that I’ve seen, and the young people that I’ve seen join together - they’ve said the times before are past.

"And unless we as a people join hands to deal with it -- it’s not a political thing, whether energy or the issues we’re having, the wars that we’re having.

"We have to make sacrifices. This man is not going to be able to do it himself. And so I know he’s going to give his best.

"And I know that I will do anything and everything, if I have to knock on doors or make whatever sacrifices --

"I have a bad habit of leaving lights on, I guess I’ll turn those off. (laughter).

"I’ll do whatever I can. But I thank God I was able to see it. I thank God I was able to see that.

"And I didn’t even know how much that meant to me until I just cried and cried and cried.

"And so many other grown adults called me, really not just cheering hysterically, but really crying.

"And that’s what it meant. And I just didn’t know. So I’m just grateful. It’s been something else for me."

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

For those of you who haven't seen the Associated Press preseason women's poll released Saturday, here it is, though we are cutting and pasting this so hopefully the tabular drops line up ok.

BC-BKW--T25-Women's Top 25,0310
The Women's Top Twenty Five
By The Associated Press
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press' preseason women's
college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses,
2007-08 records, total points based on 25 points for a first-place
vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last year's final
ranking:
Record Pts Pvs
1. Connecticut (44) 36-2 1,124 1
2. Stanford (1) 35-4 1,018 4
3. Maryland 33-4 1,005 5
4. Oklahoma 22-9 946 14
5. Rutgers 27-7 914 7
6. North Carolina 33-3 892 2
7. Tennessee 36-2 857 3
8. Duke 25-10 815 9
9. California 27-7 769 10
10. Louisville 26-10 726 19
11. Texas A&M 29-8 624 8
12. Vanderbilt 25-9 546 21
13. Texas 22-13 501 –
14. Oklahoma St. 27-8 442 13
15. Virginia 24-10 437 24
16. Notre Dame 25-9 374 15
17. Arizona St. 22-11 364 –
18. Ohio St. 22-9 359 25
19. Baylor 25-7 353 12
20. Auburn 20-12 239 –
21. Florida St. 19-14 204 –
22. Xavier 24-9 170 –
23. Purdue 19-15 148 –
24. LSU 31-6 133 6
25. Old Dominion 31-5 124 11
Others receiving votes: Pittsburgh 116, Michigan St. 67, Iowa
St. 66, Marist 58, Marquette 56, Utah 50, Georgia 37, Kansas St.
25, Syracuse 20, DePaul 8, George Washington 7, Illinois St. 7,
Southern Cal 5, West Virginia 5, Arkansas 3, Georgia Tech 2,
Montana 2, UTEP 2, Gonzaga 1, Iowa 1, Liberty 1, S. Dakota St. 1,
SMU 1.

So how did the Guru spend his extra hour after working the desk in the office Saturday night?

He went mining in the data base during the time change to find those little nuggets that won't necessarily be noticed in other reports.

We begin to saying schools in "Red States" are as endangered as what some other polls, so to speak, are saying about the election.

Let's take Georgia, for example. For the first time in 28 seasons dating back to the preseason poll of 1981-82, the Lady Bulldogs are a distant also-ran in the voting.

The graduation of five starters at Tennessee, including the departure of Candace Parker, has ramifications for both coach Pat Summitt s team and the entire Southeastern Conference.

The Vols are ranked seventh, the lowest preseason vote since a No. 6 nod at the starting gate in 1995-96 when Tennessee shook it off and won the NCAA title. Prior low votes before then were a No. 9 in 1985-86 and No. 14 in 1984-85.

As the recently dispensed phrase that used to exist here in Philadelphia until a certain World Series achievement last week, those were the drought years where most of the scant missing-in-action weeks can be found in Tennessee's storied poll history.

The Vols and Summitt have now been ranked 543 times, missing just 14 times, as we turn the history page to Season 33 and week No. 557. In that span 145 teams have been ranked 12,913 times.

Meanwhile, it's the first time since the original preseason poll of 1976-77 that no Southeastern Conference affiliated school has made the preseason Top Five. Back then, AIAW terminology was used and Tennessee was not ranked in the very first poll.

Since then, however, the Vols have appeared in all ensuing 32 preseason votes.

Incidentally, Saturday's release with a Nov. 1 stamp is the earliest-ever rollout, although the next vote will be taken Nov. 16.

Beyond Connecticut, the overall favorite, with 444 of 45 first-place votes, it should be quite the wild ride into March Madness this season, although many of the top eight in Saturday's vote could find themselves among the higher seeds when the NCAA field is announced.

Connecticut has been ranked 18 straight times in preseason polls dating back to a No. 14 in 1995-96 after the Huskies had won their first NCAA title.

Auburn's preseason appearance is the Tigers' first since 2003-04, while Old Dominion is on the first list for the first time since the 2001-02 season.

No. 2 Stanford is making it's 21st appearance, while Rutgers has made the preseason approval ratings 23 times. Scarlet Knights' coach C. Vivian Stringer has made 23 preseason appearances, but she has done it with three different teams -- four times with Cheyney, 10 with Iowa, and nine with Rutgers.

The only other coaches with three different teams in preseason polls are Jim Foster (St. Joseph's, Vanderbilt, and Ohio State), and Gary Blair (Stephe F. Austin, Arkansas, and Texas A&M).

Xavier, which has appeared during seasonal voting, is making its first appearance in the preseason vote it is also the first listing for Musketeers coach Kevin McGuff.

Meanwhile, the media panel itself has undergone some shuffling and, like the newspaper industry, is a bit downsized from last year. The overall total of voters has shrunk from to 45, involving 16 detractions overall and 10 additions.

Those of you at schools out there who found your own way to obtain email addresses -- you can erase the following members who either chose not to stay, moved to other beats, or got involved in layoffs or moved to other locations.

The 16 emigrees are Tommy Deas of the Tuscaloosa News, Ramona Shelburn of the Los Angeles Daily News, Buddy Davis, the veteran La. Tech writer of the Ruston Leader; William Weathers of the Baton Rouge Advocate, Danny P. Smith of the Columbus Commercial Appeal in Misssissippi; Steve Tabaka of the Omaha World-Hearld; Rachel Carter of the Raleigh News & Observer; JoAnne Harrop of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; John Frierson of the Chattanooga Times; Brian Davis of the Dallas Morning News; Jerry Hill of the Waco Tribune-Herald; Don Bowman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Vic Dorr of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, altough he is still there; Dick Rockne of the Seattle Post-Inteligencer; Eric Herter of the Dominion Post in West Virginia; and Tom Ziemer of the Wisconsin State Journal.

Some of the newcomers arrive from the same papers represented by previous voters.

The rookies, with one exception, are Debbie Antonelli of Westwood One; Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News; Robert Cessna of the Bryant-College Station Eagle; Brice Cherry of the Waco Tribune; Stacey Dales of ESPN, Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; Marcus Henry of Newsday; Adam Minichino of the Columbus Commercial Dispatch, who had been a previous voter in Athens, Ga., several years ago; Patrick Ochs of the Oxford Eagle;and Edward Robinson III of the Raleigh News & Observer.

Additionally, Mechelle Voepel remains at ESPN.com but is no longer at the Kansas City Star.

We'll be back with more trivia to kill a little time prior to tipoff.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - While we observe a Phillies parade that we last witnessed back before many of you were born in 1980, our good friend John Altavilla sent us a copy of comments on his blog at the Hartford Courant by Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown, about the Phillies winning the World Series.

Earlier in the week during the rain-delay of Game 5 we heard from Yale assistant coach Dianne Nolan, former Fairfield head coach, who grew up across the river in Gloucester, N.J., and whose brother Drew was on the same rioster as the Guru when Temple won the National Invitation Tournament in New York.

Herre's what was said:

Well, Geno Auriemma is one happy guy, it seems. The freshmen are playing well. Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery are excelling. And the Phillies won the World Series.

If you don't already know, Geno is a BIG Philly sports fan. He loves the Flyers, Sixers and Eagles, too. But he's deeply committed to the Phillies, in much the same way I loved the Mets until our messy split in September. I suppose there's a chance we can reconcile by the spring, but those Rays. . .I don't know. It's too early to tell. Love is a tricky thing.

But anyway, Geno obviously got a big kick out of watching the Phillies wrap up the World Series on Wednesday. And he was feeling a little nostalgic about it.

"Philadelphia is one of the few places in America, and I think New York is the same, where the fans decide what the expectations should be," Geno said. "It's not the team, the owners or the general managers [who decide] If they [the fans] think you should win the World Series, then that's what you should do. Anything less than that, you stink. That's a hard way to play in that town.

"My first recollection of the Phillies is when I first came to America [in the early 1960s).They were so bad. The 1961-63 era may have been the worst era in Phillies history. And that's bad when you consider the franchise has lost over 10,000 games.

"And then 1964 rolls around. As a kid, you're getting caught up in all, listening to all the games. Jim Bunning's pitching a perfect game at Shea Stadium on Father's Day. Johnny Callison hits a game-winning homer and is the MVP of the All-Star Game at Shea Stadium. Richie Allen is there for the first time. I can still close my eyes right now and think of the quirks of every guy at every position. If you were 10 years old, that was your life. The Eagles were lousy. Pro basketball really didn't exist. And there were no Flyers. It was win the league and go to the World Series. And to have them lose it the way they did. . .Chico Ruiz [of the Reds] steals home [to start the slide that cost them the pennant to the Cardinals].

"It wasn't like the Yankees; we'll get them next year. There was no next year for a Phillies fan. It is first and foremost a baseball town, always was and always will be. Then [after they won] you've to to deal with the phone calls. One huge Cardinals fan who I won't name, but he coaches Division I basketball in New Britain [Central Connecticut coach Howie Dickenman] called me to congratulate me on the Phillies winning their second World Series since the revolutionary war. What a way to ruin a great night. But we have as many as the Red Sox over the last 85 years."

And here is Dianne's note:

On Monday as we watched the game, my friend Chrissie, now a Judge if California, called and asked whats with the wossie ear flaps?

I even bought two boxes of tateycakes but not able to find Schmidt’s Beer. Since my mom passes, my dad lives with us.

Drew sent him a fitted P hat and is a sight in his pj’s and hat.

Know that the fans are in the south of Ct not just the north!!

GO PHILLIES!!

Dianne M Nolan

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - The Atlantic Ten went a different direction Tuesday in media day events, holding a combined teleconference and videoconference, using the internet, instead of going to a live site for interviews with conference men's and women's coaches and players.

You can listen to all of it at the A-10 site. Your Guru had to deal with most of it to write a print story for both genders while we all wait down here for a certain, ahem, World Series baseball event to continue from the Monday.

Though your Guru was inside the office dealing with the rest of the world for the section as the night wire editor, it became an adventurous darkness-into-sunrise experience, which we'll get to in a bit.

Right now (late Tuesday) at 11:30 p.m., the rain has gone away but some weather God has provided temperature and wind conditions that had been reserved earlier for either Chicago team if they had advanced.

Meanwhile, for you Uonn fans up North, a few quick items, one of which is to justify the headline.

On the A-10 call, the session with St. Joseph's men's coach Phil Martelli ended before the Guru had a chance to ask about the progress of freshman Michael Auriemma, the son of a certain well-known Connecticut women's coach who is a longtime friend of Martelli back from their days together here in the city's Catholic League.

The Guru returned to the waking world briefly to ask new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza, a former longtime assistant to Geno Auriemma, whether she had referenced her friend Dawn Staley, the former Owls coach, about the team.

Cardoza, a former Virginia teammate of Staley, who is now coaching South Carolina, said she wanted to assume command by making her own judgements and impressions without having an influence from someone else's input.

She reported that everyone has been great to date and that perhaps players who had not been used much in the past appreciated a clean slate and new start in a system that is expected to have more emphasis on offense.

The big holes to fill is the point guard slot after Ashley Morris finished her career in memorable fashion and at center, which was dominated by Lady Comfort.

Xavier was picked first, but the balloting was done before Amber Harris' knee surgery. Locally, Temple was picked fourth -- Cardoza thought it would be lower -- St. Joseph's was picked sixth -- coach Cindy Griffin thought the Hawks would be a little higher -- and La Salle was picked 13th.

Griffin thought her Hawks' longtime rivalry with Temple and George Washington would be "a little weird" this year with the departure of GW's Joe McKeown to Northwestern and Staley to South Carolina.

Of McKeown, she noted, "He was coaching GW when I was still playing."

And Fordham coach Cathy Andruzzi reported no scars had been left from the dubious record 0-29 performance last season and her Rams were energized and ready to do battle.

AP Preseason Poll

In the earliest release in what begins the 33rd season -- I think -- of the Associated Press women's poll, the rankings will move on the wire Saturday for Sunday papers, with the preseason All-America team to follow 24-48 hours later.

Election Map in Collegiate Conference Land

Looking at a layout of the projected presidential race across the nation, the Guru has decided the following about BCS conferences: The Big East, and Pac-10 are blue conferences; the Big 12 and SEC are red conferences; and the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast are battleground conferences.

An Adventurous Night

OK, earlier your Guru referred to the previous 24 hours here and now presents another, "When life is not glamorous" episode.

Monday night began with two plans for the paper -- Phillies win and the town blows up or Phillies lose and on to Florida.

But this is Philadelphia, so if you really looked deep into your gut, you could have made a ton of money betting the bizarre would occur.

And sure enough it did when weather conspired to create an all-new on-the-run Plan C for the paper when the World Series game was suspended.

Meanwhile, unrelated to all this but looming ahead for the Guru was the A-10 maraphone call since he was asked by an editor to handle the men's portion along with the women. Note to Drexel men's coach Bruiser Flint -- you're still the main gender equity project for the Guru.

A promise had been made earlier to the Guru's A-10 staff friends help out with interviews of the women's coaches prior to the office adding a little bit to the workload that also included another desk shift on Tuesday night -- like right now.

After leaving here sometime before daylight, the Guru decided to stop for a sunrise snack at his neighborhood late-nite diner and entertain the staff with tales of the evening's activity -- especially Valeria, the recently-arrived young cashier from Romania whom the Guru has been educating to American ways.

Then the Guru departed for home and a few hours sleep to wait for the call. As he steered onto the street in a rental Dodge Avenger he had been using, suddenly the motor cut off and he glided the vehicle to the curb at the front end of a bus stop.

Although the battery was providing power, it appeared some computer glitch was not sending whatever to the ignition. If anyone knows what "No Bu5 or BuS" means on the dash, email the Guru.

He phoned the rental agency, located a few blocks from home, which then sent someone out to check on the situation. After a half-hour wait, someone arrived at 7:30 a.m. and said the electronics baffled him. Meanwhile, it was chilly and rainy.

The Guru next called the rental's roadside assistance, which said it would notify the Philly fleet center. The Guru also notified his local rental staffers, who know him well.

They went ahead to prepare the paperwork for a switch, which meant the Guru was going to spend some time transferring his GPS, his IPod connections, and also had to use the backseat to get to his laptop, which was in a trunk that would not open, although the door locks worked.

Finally, the Philly center from the other side of town said a tow truck would come from the airport. At 9 a.m., someone arrived and we headed to make the switch. That done, the Guru hit home just before the A-10 calls got under way.

All appeared normal to Charlotte coach Karen Aston when the call began and the Guru somehow maintained coherency through noon on the marathon. At that point, taking advantage of a half-hour break before being needed, the Guru drifted into la-la land.

Awakening at 1:30 p.m., the Guru realized there was still time to return to the call and at the moment noticed a text message from A-10 communications official AnnMarie Person, the former UConn women's media relations official and Guru's personal SID when he becomes subject matter, to get back on the call.

As the Guru returned, the A-10 phone back at conference headquarters blew out and so he was in place just in time to pick up the conversation with new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza.

Then it was off to sleep and then return here to write the print story and do another turn on the desk.

Meanwhile, in another somewhat crippling technology disaster for those of you communicating 24/7 with Guru central, his blackberry keyboard on the T-mobile system is half-shot. But he was able to use an existing backup carrier at AT&T to engage a second blackberry (Sarah Palin has nothing on me), but the address file still has to be inputting so we're working with both, for now.

However, the company cell remains ok, although we've been told a new carrier would soon become involved with the company.

That said, it's time to sign off, but like General MacArthur, the Guru will return -- and it won't take two years.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

NEW YORK – Not many months ago Wilmington’s Elena Delle Donne was being discussed as the next great force in women’s basketball.

Straight ahead on the horizon was a freshman season at the University of Connecticut, considered the overwhelming favorite to win the 2009 NCAA championship and quite possibly and few more in the years the former Ursuline Academy star would be on a roster.

That collection already has one crown jewel in sophomore Maya Moore along with a multitude of other gems.

However, less than 24 hours after arriving at the Huskies’ Storrs campus last June, Delle Donne also arrived at the notion that perhaps the great calling of basketball had been a wrong number.

And so she returned home, startling her father Ernie with a knock at the door the following morning, and then let the summer months go by before deciding at the end of August to enroll at nearby Delaware to play volleyball.

But if Delle Donne has withdrawn, for now, as the next great force in women’s basketball, she was very much the invisible gazelle Wednesday at the Colonial Athletic Association’s media day in Washington and st the Big East’s media day here on Thursday.

Two articles in the last week in the New York Times and Washington Post involving interviews with Delle Donne helped fuel the conversation.

Initially, reporters venturing to Newark, Del., to watch the 19 year-old compete with the Blue Hens were advised in advance that Delle Donne was not going to comment further on basketball in the wake of her press conference when she announced her decision to play volleyball.

And for those who have been chronicling the saga, no new ground was broken by either paper in terms of what she had already stated back in September.

But each article contained a bit of a hint that the door was not slammed shut in the long run in terms of Delle Donne returning to that in which she earned the same early high school acclaim that had been given over the years to such superstars as Nancy Lieberman, Cheryl Miller, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi, and more recently Candace Parker.

"The game itself kind of changed for me," Delle Donne said to the Washington Post in discussing with a little more depth the burnout she felt. "I thought the game was a team sport; we're all in this together winning games. At one point, it became the game was me against me. If I didn't score 30 points and have 15 rebounds, then we lost -- even if we did win. The whole team aspect of the sport went away from me.

"At U-Conn., it wouldn't have been that way; it would've been the whole team. I knew that, but I guess it just killed the sport for me over the years. The sport ended up dying for me."
But then Delle Donne said to the New York Times, “I love what I’m doing; I don’t see any reason to change as of now.

“If I ended up missing a sport, I wouldn’t mind just playing here and maybe doing two sports. Or if I really, really missed it and I wanted to go back to Connecticut, that’s always a possibility, too. But right now, I’m happy, so I’m going to stick with what I’m doing and enjoy it.”
Those comments had the CAA folks again speculating how an eventual decision to play basketball at Delaware would transform the league, considered a mid-major.

There’s also the prospect that one benefit of Delle Donne’s participation with the Blue Hens would bring to an end the 17-year reign of Old Dominion, which is again the preseason favorite.

Delaware was picked seventh, but one joke heard was that the ranking had an invisible asterisk with the denotation that if Delle Donne joined the team, the Blue Hens would be minimally upgraded to third.

However, it is believed the NCAA was not asked for a waiver on the release from Delle Donne’s UConn scholarship to play at Delaware because she had declared that she definitely had no interest in basketball for now.

Several hours after the CAA one-on-one sessions got under way, Delaware coach Tina Martin was asked how times she had been asked about Delle Donne.

“A lot. But I have nothing to say,” Martin responded. “She knows where we are. But she has to decide for herself what’s best and we’re staying out of it. So it really isn’t appropriate to say anything else.”

Meanwhile, Delle Donne was also in side discussions here at the Big East event in some ways because of the “what might have been” factors had she remained at UConn.

For one, given her reputation, perhaps Delle Donne would have been named the Big East’s top incoming freshman instead of Rutgers’ super-talent April Sykes, who was given the honor by the conference’s coaches.

The Villanova contingent was also approached about Delle Donne because the Wildcats along with Tennessee and Middle Tennessee were the three other finalists in the recruiting race when she declared for Connecticut.

There was even a brief period a year ago in late summer where Villanova coach Harry Perretta was being told he had become the favorite to land the former player with Fencor on the AAU circuit.

“I am getting more questions about it now than before,” Perretta said.

One reason is some believe that if she wanted to play in the Big East and stay close to home, the Wildcats would be the perfect fit.

And coming from Delaware instead of Connecticut, maybe the Big East transfer rule barring eligibility once a commitment had been given to another member would no longer be applicable.

Both Wildcats seniors Laura Kurz and Siobhan O’Connor, who crossed paths with Delle Donne on the local AAU circuit, were asked what a Wildcat roster would be like had Villanova been the winner in the recruiting race last year.

“She would have been a third force, another option,” O’Connor said, while Kurz added, “She would have helped us tremendously, but we never really thought it was a realistic situation. So it wasn’t like we were getting our hopes up for it to happen.”

Connecticut has moved on and coach Geno Auriemma is not publicly commenting on Delle Donne’s departure or if she would be welcomed in a bid to return.

But a week ago, he did make some allusions during the Huskies’ media day when the following question was asked: “The fact that one freshman who everybody was talking about is not going to be here, not going to be with this program, do you think they (the team) in their hearts want to prove they could win a national championship without her?”

“I don’t think that’s an issue at all,” Auriemma said. “I think they probably want to win a national championship because we lost last year in St. Petersburg (Fla.). I have not sat down and talked to them about any of that.

“I think they know me well enough – I know a lot of coaches talk a lot about who’s not here, who used to be here, who’s gonna be here. It seems there’s more focus on who’s not here. Who should be here,” Auriemma continued.

“I’ve never believed in that. And I don’t think they do either. I’