All posts tagged UConn

WNBA Draft Live, 3 p.m. Today

By | April 11, 2011 | Basketball, WNBA, Women's Sports | Comments Off

Just a week after a women’s NCAA basketball championship that may have been better played and harder fought than the men’s, it’s time for some of the ladies to go pro.

Texas A&M champs Sydney Colson and Danielle Adams were two of the 15 players invited to attend today’s WNBA draft, along with UConn star forward Maya Moore, Australia National Team member and Bulleen Boomers (Australia’s WNBL) center Elizabeth Cambage, Ohio State center Jantel Lavender and Gonzaga guard Courtney Vandersloot.

Rounding out the list of invited players are Jessica Breland from North Carolina, Kentucky forward Victoria Dunlap, Xavier forward Amber Harris and center Ta’Shia Phillips, Stanford forward Kayla Pedersen, Oklahoma guard Danielle Robinson, Boston College center Carolyn Swords and Duke guard Jasmine Thomas.

The Minnesota Lynx have first pick in the first round, and a likely shot at adding Moore, whose UConn career point tally was a remarkable 2871, to their roster. The Tulsa Shock and Chicago Sky have the second and third picks.

ESPN will broadcast the draft live at 3 p.m., and WNBA.com will have live chat, live blogging, and live tweeting from WNBA players, coaches, and GMs. You can also follow #WNBADraft on Twitter (and help it trend, if you’re so inclined.) Best of luck to all of these standout players.

Irish Beat UConn Women

By | April 4, 2011 | Basketball, March Madness, NCAA, Women's Sports | Comments Off

The UConn Huskies’ three-season dominance of women’s basketball ended tonight, as Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish knocked them off in the Final Four.

The story is really best told by my friend Alana, a daughter of ND alums, partially raised in Indiana:

UConn star Maya Moore could not overcome Notre Dame, led by guard Skylar Diggins, who scored 28 points tonight and had the look of a woman who was not finished winning games in this particular series. March was lucky indeed for the Irish, who had already knocked off a Tennessee team they hadn’t bested in 20 games.

The Huskies pulled back within six a little more than three minutes from the final buzzer, with a series of buckets from Moore pulling them closer than the 10 deficit they faced at the half, but it wasn’t to be. Statistics aside, shots of UConn coach Geno Auriemma courtside after the two-minute warning told the tale. Or at least I thought you could see it on his face:

He just did. He looked like a guy who knew his girls were done, that they were going to lose this game. And I have to say that of all of the displays of basketball coaching I’ve witnessed from many men and women over the past few weeks, I think that Geno Auriemma handled this situation in the best possible way for the situation he was facing for his players and himself.

And I don’t even like UConn, so you can take that to the bank.

“They played great basketball all year,” he said in the post-game presser, which UConn also handled with aplomb across the board, of Notre Dame.

“It’s their turn.”

Moore was a model of poise and mature disappointment in her post-game interview, speaking of her UConn family as the best thing she’d gotten from her competitive experience.

And to anyone who says that women’s basketball isn’t exciting or athletically viable? I say you missed a hell of a game, and a fine example of collegiate athletes working hard to represent themselves and their teams on and off the court. I don’t give a damn where the net is or how exciting anyone thinks  games are or should be. I know basketball, and this was good, competitive basketball, gender aside. All of the women on that court tonight should be proud.

The Irish will meet the Aggies Tuesday in the NCAA women’s championship.

Stanford Women Beat UConn, Hell Briefly Freezes Over

By | December 31, 2010 | Basketball, Coaches, NCAA, Women's Sports | 1 Comment

I admit it, when UConn set the NCAA record for games won with an 89th straight win over Florida State last week, I wondered if they’d ever lose.

But then again, I’m prone to extreme, magical thinking. I wondered if Geno Auriemma could just keep stacking his roster with awesome, unstoppable players who could beat anyone on any NCAA women’s team. I wondered why any superstar high school basketball player would consider another school. Also I wondered if there was a conspiracy, but that’s another story.

None of that was true. After winning their 90th straight game at Pacific last week, the Huskies lost to the Stanford Cardinal tonight, and not by a basket or a few. The last team to beat them — in the playoffs on April 6, 2008 — did it again, 71-59, in their 52nd straight home win.

“I’m just happy for our team,” said Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer. “The streak is something that they did. We’re about Stanford and what we want to do.”

Stanford is a big team and UConn star Maya Moore was held pointless until almost 17 minutes into the game. Stanford senior guard Jeanette Pohlen scored a career-high 31 points, while Moore eked out 15. The Huskies never led, which is amazing, really, considering that, well, they’ve won 90 games, which assumes they’ve lead at least once in all of them, if I understand numbers correctly.

Auriemma took a lot of heat between wins 88 and 89 for calling out the media and fans for underestimating women’s basketball.

“Because we’re breaking a men’s record, we’ve got a lot of people paying attention,” Auriemma said. “If we were breaking a women’s record, everybody would go, ‘Aren’t those girls nice, let’s give them two paragraphs in USA Today, you know, give them one line on the bottom of ESPN and then let’s send them back where they belong, in the kitchen.’”

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer

Tonight he seemed shocked by the loss, which I guess is pretty normal if you haven’t lost at something for two-and-a-half years and then all of a sudden you do. I guess you’d feel like you pretty much had the winning thing down by then.

“At some point reality had to set in, and today reality set in. I’m not destroyed about it…Winning that many games in a row, it’s unheard of. I thought we let it get away from us. I think the atmosphere and what was going on and when Maya couldn’t get going early. I think it affected the rest of our guys. We just didn’t play like ourselves. Give credit to Stanford. I think they played an unbelievably good game.”

Yes, they did. Congratulations to Stanford for a big win, and to UConn for a record-setting streak that had to end — as they do — sometime.

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UCONN Women Break Winning Streak With 89

By | December 23, 2010 | Basketball, NCAA, Women's Sports | Comments Off

The University of Connecticut Women’s Basketball team has not lost a game since April 6. April 6, 2008 that is.

Last night, the UCONN women beat Florida State for their 89th win in a row. That is the longest winning streak in NCAA basketball history. I didn’t say NCAA women’s basketball history. I said NCAA basketball history. The NCAA Division I basketball record.

Last night The University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team surpassed the record held by the UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team. The Bruins won 88 games in a row 37 years ago. That was a John Wooden coached team.

Coach Geno Auriemma and his star player, Maya Moore, have led this team to 89 wins in a row. That is an amazing number. I’ve never won anything 89 times in a row. Neither has any other Division I basketball team. Ever.

I watched the press conference after the game last night. This win was such a big deal that Geno Auriemma received a call from President Obama congratulating him on winning the game and breaking the record. I guess that is what happens when you make history. I almost cried watching the phone call. I don’t know if it was a weird surge of patriotism or pride in a team that I have been watching win for over three years in a row now, but I suspect that it had more to do with the fact that The President of the United States of America was probably watching women’s college basketball last night.

If this is what it takes to have women’s sports get press time and visibility, then let’s keep breaking records.

89 wins and counting.

Congratulations to Maya Moore, Tiffany Hayes, Caroline Doty and the entire University of Connecticut team. You ladies are amazing.

* * *

Originally written for and published on BlogHer.com

What Would it Take for the BCS to Adjust Pairings?

By | December 9, 2010 | College Football, Football, NCAA | 4 Comments

I’ll be the first to admit that I am a relative newcomer to the careful examination of the arcane BCS bowl selection rules.  But seeing as how my team is, like, a legit football presence this year (woohoo!) I suddenly find myself both better informed of and more annoyed than ever at the process.  I mean, have you actually ever  tried to read through all the rules?  As someone who is a lawyer for a living, I can say with certainty that these things are as convoluted and opaque (and long!) as your average commercial contract.

Orange Bowl Bound, Baby!

I’ll admit: I am a little sad that the weird combination of rules conspired to keep Stanford out of the Rose Bowl.  We went to the Rose Bowl when I was in college, in 2000, and it was awesome.  This year’s team is WAY BETTER than that team.  They deserve a nice Rose Bowl berth, in my view, instead of this stupid “must take a non-automatically-qualifying team every four years” rule that led to TCU getting in there.

So maybe you’ll think that everything I’m about to say is just sour grapes.  I can live with that.

Here’s where things stand: Stanford will be playing Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.  In Miami.  Many thousands of miles away from Palo Alto, but relatively close to the East Coast.  UConn will be playing Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.  In Phoenix.  Many thousands of miles away from Stoors, CT, but rather close to, say, Palo Alto.

This is goofy, right?

How did we get here?  Well, after the BCS championship game took the Pac-10 winner (Oregon), the Rose Bowl was obligated to take a non-BCS automatic qualifying team (TCU) to play the Big Ten champion (Wisconsin).  The remaining BCS bowls get to choose who to take in an order that changes every year.  An entirely forgettable team (sorry, Connecticut) won the Big East, entitling them to a BCS berth and narrowly edging out the more traditional football powerhouse West Virginia.  (But it was a sweet field goal that sealed that victory for UConn.  Credit where it’s due, and all that.)

In this year’s lottery, the Orange Bowl got to pick before the Fiesta Bowl.  Now, had UConn lost last week, West Virginia would have won the Big East, and the Orange Bowl almost certainly would have selected West Virginia to play Virginia Tech for a nice close-to-home rivalry bowl matchup.

But UConn won, and UConn travels poorly.  Maybe even more poorly than Stanford.  (And that’s saying something.)  So the Orange Bowl, faced with the fact that neither team is likely to bring in tens of thousands of money-spending fans, does the right thing and chooses Stanford, the school with the NFL-caliber quarterback and the stronger football program.  The Fiesta Bowl is left with UConn.

So now two poor-traveling schools are both faced with bowl games that are VERY VERY FAR from where most of their fan base lives.  Want to make an already-small crowd even smaller?  Make the game a $700 plane flight away.

It didn’t have to happen like this.  After all, clause 5 of the “Team Selections Procedures” of the aforementioned opaque BCS rules states:

5. After completion of the selection process as described in Paragraph Nos. 1-4, the conferences and Notre Dame may, but are not required to, adjust the pairings taking into consideration the following:

  • A. whether the same team will be playing in the same bowl game for two consecutive years;
  • B. whether two teams that played against one another in the regular season will be paired against one another in a bowl game;
  • C. whether the same two teams will play against each other in a bowl game for two consecutive years; and
  • D. whether alternative pairings may have greater or lesser appeal to college football fans as measured by expected ticket sales for the bowls and by expected television interest, and the consequent financial impact on Fox and the bowls

Does this not seem like a PERFECT opportunity to invoke (D)?  Putting these teams so far away from their already-small fan bases is certainly going to have an impact on expected television sales.  At least as far as the Fiesta Bowl is concerned, too, I think it would have an impact on expected television interest- West Coast fans like West Coast teams.

So we will watch the Orange Bowl- my husband from the stands (lucky bastard) and me from the couch in our living room (sad sack non-traveling pregnant lady), and we will be proud of our scrappy little team and our fabulous coach and our amazing quarterback and our Locks of Love-supporting two-way player.  It’s all good.

Marecic's splendid mane. Do you think Troy Polamalu donates his hair to Locks of Love? No, I think not.

But I’m still left wondering – what would it take for the BCS to actually use Rule D?  Or is it just, like so many other elements of the BCS, destined to just be a poorly-understood, imperfectly-managed component of a deeply flawed system?

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