VIdeo of the Day

Crazy ball skills by 5-year-old Milan Simon Tuttle. Someone buy that girl a WNBA ball and uniform!

First WNBA Player's Son Drafted by NBA

Cool. I saw Pam McGee win the gold medal with the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team in L.A. in 1984. (Did you know her twin sister Paula, who played with her at USC, is now a preacher?)

Nevada Appeal: McGee drafted to Washington

Former University of Nevada standout JaVale McGee was drafted No. 18 overall to the Washington Wizards Thursday night in the NBA Draft.

ESPN: Mother-son legacy a first for WNBA/NBA

Women's Hoops Blog: McGee #1

Tennessee Are National Champions - Again

University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers' Alexis Hornbuckle (R) celebrates with teammate Candace Parker (L) after they defeated Rutgers University Scarlet Knights in the NCAA women's championship basketball game in Cleveland, Ohio April 3, 2007. REUTERS/Ron Kuntz (UNITED STATES)
Ho Hum. I mean it. Really boring game. Lots of defense, lots of bad shooting, the taller team won. Tennessee had 8 million offensive rebounds, well, that's how it seemed (OK, only 23); since they missed 38 shots, there were rebounds to be had. So often the final is anticlimactic (as the men's final was last night) compared to the excitement of the earlier rounds. Despite all the shouting by the ESPN announcers (isn't it time for Mike Patrick to retire?) there wasn't much excitement on the floor. Candace Parker was named the MVP and she shot 5 for 15 from the floor. Ouch.

Congratulation to Pat Summit on her 7th national title. Only three more to tie John Wooden. She'll have Candace Parker for two more years. Why did the ESPN crew keep giving credence to the ridiculous rumor that Parker would leave school for the WNBA? Don't they realize that the WNBA limits salaries? As a rookie Parker would get paid $43,000 a year. What's that to jump at?

One reason many women elect to remain in college is that WNBA salaries are puny by pro athlete standards: $43,200 for rookies such as Parker and Fowles. The No. 1 NBA draft pick, by comparison, can expect to earn $3.6 million during his first season.

And congratulations to C. Vivian Stringer for taking her very young Rutgers team to the final. Kia Vaughn (only a sophmore) had a fine game, finishing with 20 points on 9 for 15 shooting, with 10 rebounds (7 offensive). She didn't get much help from her teammates. Epiphany Prince didn't take a shot. Prince, Carson and Ajavon combined for 18 points; against LSU the three totaled 38 points. But they're a young team, and this experience should prove invaluable next year.

Box Score

USAToady: Tennessee trumps Rutgers, nabs first title since 1998

WABC (NY): Rutgers fall short in championship game

Tennessee Will Play Tuesday Night

North Carolina's Camille Little, foreground, and Tennessee's Nicky Anosike wait for the ball to fall during the first half of the women's semifinal basketball game at the Final Four Sunday, April 1, 2007, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Tennessee over North Carolina in the second semi-final, 56-50.

Not a pretty game, beginning with terrible officiating by the usual suspect refs, Dee Kantner, Eric Brewton, and Mary Day. Only 14 fouls called on Tennessee the entire game, while two of North Carolina's starters fouled out. Tennessee took 26 fouls shots; North Carolina took 8. Nobody came to the arena to watch the striped shirts, but they had a big negative impact.

The first half was an emotional roller-coaster. Both teams were over-pumped and out of control. Missed shots, turnovers, clashes. Early in the first half Tennessee was 1 for 12 and North Carolina was 1 for 13 (or vice versa). Both Parker and Latta sat out due to foul trouble. I must say, it's hard to root for Candace Parker. She reminds me of Reggie Miller, all snideness and attitude. When Latta got her third foul, Parker celebrated on the bench by holding up three fingers and dancing. Not classy.

North Carolina stormed back in the second half behind Latta and McCants and great defense; but when they got up by 10 they tightened up and stopped shooting. Then they lost two starters to fouls. Tennessee scored 20 of the last 22 points of the game. Ouch.

I'll be rooting for Rutgers in the final just so I don't have to hear that damned song Rocky Top any more this season.

No News (Updated, below)

Nothing significant has been reported on the Pokey Chatman story today. Many visits to this blog from people trying to find out who the player she was involved with was. I didn't find one speck of rumor on the 'nets about the player's identity. They must have been very discreet.

Or maybe Pokey is just a really nice person who made a mistake. Her star center, Sylvia Fowles, was fulsome in her praise of her now former coach yesterday. The ESPN selection show had Stacy Dales going on and on about how great a person Chatman is, even going to far as to predict Pokey will be back in coaching soon. They've toned down Stacey Dales on ESPN, but I still don't think she's the sharpest knife in the drawer. Or maybe she just doesn't know the history of women's coaches.

Male coaches can come back from anything. They go to strip clubs (Mike Price, fired by University of Alabama, hired by UTEP), kill people with their cars (Craig McTavish, killed a woman while driving drunk in 1984, now coach, Edmonton Oilers,), lie on their resumes (George O'Leary, fired by Notre Dame for lying on his resume, now head coach of the University of Central Florida), you name it, if they're a good coach they've got another head coaching job in a few weeks.

Female coaches? Transgress and work no more. The case in point is Marianne Stanley. Now, you may not like Marianne Stanley, as she seems to be fairly abrasive, but she is one of the winningest womens's college basketball coaches of all time. She's still the youngest coach ever to win the NCAA Championship (Old Dominion, 1985, age 31). First, she got shitcanned by USC because she dared -- she dared to ask to be paid equally as the men's basketball coach, George Raveling, since they did the same job. Oh, you know they fired her for that. And she lost her federal lawsuit, don't get me started on how the federal courts have eviscerated the Equal Pay Act (but for you law junkies out there, here's a law review article reviewing the court's mishandling of Stanley's federal court claim). That's a whole other post.

It took her two and a half years to get another job, at Cal Berkeley. Stanley then got forced out of Cal because she stupidly told one of her assistants who got pregnant that she should get an abortion or quit. (That laser beam focus on winning -- how can you get out there & recruit if you're pregnant -- definitely overrid Stanley's common sense.) But that didn't come out at the time. She just got fired for having a losing record as far as the world knew. And again, it took her two years to get hired as a head coach again, by the WNBA Washington Mystics. When the Washington Post dug up that she'd been fired by Cal for the pregnancy discrimination claim, out she went again. And she has been nothing but an assistant ever since, currently beside Vivian Stringer at Rutgers. I have a sneaking suspicion that is she were male, she'd be a head coach again.

Pokey can only hope that Stacey Dales is prophetic. I doubt it, and doubt that she'll have an easy time getting back into coaching. Maybe the WNBA; but they only hire men these days.

UPDATE: My sister calls to remind me of the most recent case of a male coach who transgressed and was immediately rehired: Larry Eustachy, head basketball coach at Iowa State until 2003. In 2003 he was photographed at a student party after a basketball game, drinking and posing for pictures kissing students. He was the highest paid employee of the state of Iowa at the time. What happened to Larry Eustachy for this public drinking and cavorting with impressionable young people? Well, he did resign from Iowa State and admitted he was an alcoholic. But it wasn't so hard for him. He got a $960,000 settlement on his way out the door (male coaches always have long-term contracts; women's coaches rarely do) and didn't miss a step in coaching, as he was hired by Southern Mississippi where he continues to coach today. Just another example of my point. If a man messes up, he can always get a job again. Always. Here are the photos that ended Eustachy's career with Iowa State (but not his coaching career). Party on, dude.

I'm Talkin Basketball

Shoulda-been-MVP Kristi Toliver (5' 7") hits a 3-pointer over 6' 7" Allison Bales to send Maryland-Duke to overtime

Fantastic weekend of basketball here in Boston. Saturday night Coach Mom & I went into town to meet up with my sister. We had dinner at Skipjack's in Copley Square. While waiting for a table, seats at the bar opened up, so we got to watch George Mason lose to Florida in the first game of the men's semifinals. I love my family. At one point I asked, "Where did [Florida coach] Billy Donovan play in college?". My sister & Coach Mom answered in unison "PROVidence" (in a tone that said, 'you idiot', which I accepted as my due), and Coach Mom said, "For Rick Pitino." Doesn't everybody know that? In my family they do. Idiot.

I got to have sushi and everyone loved their dinners. We walked on Newbury St. afterwards and windowshopped art and clothes. We left sis who was heading to a WNBA party & headed back to central Mass.

For Sunday's games we picked up my friend's kids, ages 14 and 11. They were excited to go to their first Final Four. We got to the Garden pretty easily, parked in the underground parking garage ($23, ouch), and headed upstairs. I stood in line at the undermanned souvenir stand (why do they only have two people working these booths? They could have sold out the first day with more salespeople.) for 20 minutes and got the kids Final Four shirts with their favorite team's logo (North Carolina and Duke) and a ticket lanyard and a pin for Coach Mom. Then we got hotdogs & drinks and headed up to our seats in the balcony. I was pleased to see that no alcohol was being served. It was a very family atmosphere, especially if you come from a family with lots of tall women (like I do.) I always feel so short at the Final Four. I have to keep reminding myself, You are the average American woman. Not short, average.

Our seats were in Balcony section 307, row 5, in the corner on the same side as the benches. We had a good overview of the court, but I was glad we brought binoculars so we could see the player's faces.

The first semi was a barnburner. We were rooting for North Carolina and Ivory Latta, but she got hurt in the first half and was never very effective. Reportedly, she hyperextended her left knee. She was carried of the court so we were surprised when she returned. Maryland's freshman guard Kristi Toliver was guarding Latta and she used her 4" height advantage to great advantage. She just wouldn't let Latta drive on her which really took a lot away from Latta's game. Maryland ran a couple of clear-out plays where Toliver isolated Latta and drove on her, scoring with ease. Toliver finished with 14 points, as did Latta, but that was advantage: Maryland, as Latta averaged 18.2 during the regular season, while Toliver averaged 11.5.

It was a very physical game. Maryland substituted in a post player, Jade Perry, whose sole purpose seemed to be putting a body hard on North Carolina's talented post player, Erlana Larkins. Larkins finished with 28 points to lead NC but she took a lot of punishment. The terrible officiating crew from the Pac-10 didn't help matters, letting assault go on in the paint while calling touch fouls on outside shooters. They were consistent -- consistently terrible, as was all the officiating in the tournament. (Sally Jenkins of the WaPo says, fire all the officials and start all over.) Some fans from the Pac-10 were sitting in front of us & they groaned when the officials walked out onto the court.

North Carolina never was able to cut the gap and when Larkins fouled out with less than a minute remaining, she went over to shake hands with Duke coach Gail Goestenkors and the game was over.

Between games we met up with my sister after rendevousing via cellphone. (We passed Georgia coach Andy Landers on our way.) She moved us down to centercourt, 7th row seats for the second game. What a difference! We were behind the Duke bench. Allison Bales is huge. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a game. Duke put a smothering double-teaming defense on Siemone Augustus, and no one else from LSU stepped into the void. LSU's 45 points was the lowest point total ever in a semi-final game. It was such a blow-out that we left early with 4 minutes left on the clock, something we never do, but it was almost midnight, and the kids had school the next day.

Why do they start the games so late? The only reason the kids got to see the game is because they were there. If they were home not surrounded by screaming fans they would have been asleep on the couch. How can you build a fan base when the games are played while they're catching zzzz's?

The final last night was great. On our way in Coach Mom recognized former longtime Maryland coach Chris Weller, so we stopped and congratulated her. I'm sure it was a bittersweet moment, as she built the program, then got run out of town by AD Debbie Yow. I'm sure they had her resign or something like that to save face, but everyone knew what had happened.

I couldn't really root for Maryland. First, Maryland AD Debbie Yow, credited with the huge expansion of the Maryland women's basketball program, has been no friend of Title IX. It was Yow, a member of Bush's Title IX commission, who proposed allowing schools to comply with Title IX by offering as few as 43% of scholarships to women, even though women make up 55.5% of undergraduates nationwide. Add to my dislike of Yow all the allegations of recruiting violations swirling around the Maryland women's basketball program. Who wants to have the first women's basketball championship revoked because of later-adjudged recruiting violations?

So Duke it was. The building was packed -- well, maybe there were a few empty yellow seats in the balconies, but at least 16,000 people in the building. The crowd was wild. And Duke came out hot, packing in the defense, denying Crystal Langhorne and Laura Harper, Maryland's leading scorers in the semis, good looks inside. Duke led by as much as 13 points in the first half, but while Maryland continued to play poorly, Duke didn't take advantage and put them away. They got sloppy, threw away passes, missed layups, and at half Maryland was only down by 10.

Maryland hung in there, hung in there, and then with about 8 minutes left in the game, they found their stroke. Duke fell apart. Mistie Williams, who had led them in scoring in the semis, only had 3 points last night, and by the end she was passing up all open shots. No one from Duke seemed to want the ball during the last five minutes or in the overtime.

When Toliver hit her three-pointer with 6 seconds left to tie the game, the Garden went wild. People were shouting, throwing up their hands, shaking their heads, and just screaming. I just knew Duke was dead. Duke has a well-earned reputation as chokers. Goestenkors has built a great program at Duke, but she seems like a tense person, and her teams always play tense in the big games. Exactly what they did last night. Their best player last night was guard Lindsey Harding, but she committed a senseless foul in the final minute to take herself off the court. Mo Currie finally hit two shots in the OT, but never touched the ball again on offense. Duke had one final chance, but the shot was off balance, and off target. Duke melted off the floor, while Maryland streamed onto it, exulting in their improbable win.

Laura Harper was named Tournament MVP. She did lead Maryland with 25 points over North Carolina, but in the championship she had 16 points (same as Toliver and Shea Doron). Toliver only had 14 points vs. North Carolina, but she was guarding Latta, NC's best player, and she took her out of the game. Without her cool three-pointer, Maryland does not go to overtime, does not win the title. Therefore, Toliver was my MVP. She got robbed, IMHP.

Congratulations to Maryland. Fear the turtle!


ESPN: Terps take title and there may be more on the way

SI: Start of something big
Toliver, Maryland have bright future after taking title