Let's continue the countdown of the top nearly-a-decade women's basketball teams (as compared to Jake Curtis from Stanford Cardinal Basketball Examiner).
Jake-UNC
Jenn-OOOOOOO-klahoma! Where Stacey Dales and Courtney Paris playeddddd (<---sung to the obvious song)
Okay, okay...so I might get some slack from some people for putting OU ahead of UNC but like I mentioned in yesterday's post, UNC was the biggest disappointment for me. So much talent, no national title births, so many players in the WNBA. Enough about that. Onto some STATS!
Stacey Dales (2 time All-American from our neighbor, Canada) started the almost-a-decade and Courtney Paris (4 time All-American) finished the almost-a-decade. Start to finish, solid team. 2 Final Fours, 1 National Title game (2002, losing to my best team ever to be assembled, UCONN but we will get to that team later), five top 10 finishes, five Big 12 Titles. Oklahoma was solid.
Coach Sherri Coale has done amazing things with a program that was almost wiped away. In 1990 the University of Oklahoma came close to cutting the program (I mean this '-' close). As a side note: it was really inspiring to see the entire women's basketball community rally and wear ribbons to show their support of the women's basketball program at OU. Anyway, in 1996 OU took a chance and hired Sherri Coale as their head coach...her previous experience was high school. They averaged 100 people per game her first year. In 2009 they averaged 9,000 fans per game. So on top of their accolades of Final Fours, Championship games and All-Americans...they have a coach that gave the program a full make over. Well done, well done. I admit, as I sat at the Final Four in 2009 I looked at my friend and said, "Wow, I bet OU is glad they didn't pull the plug on this program!" Look for OU to continue to do well into the next decade.
WNBA
-Best of luck to Kara Lawson for a quick recovery from tendinitis in her right quadriceps muscle. Lawson was one of the first 8 players named to the US National Women's Basketball team. Training starts at the end of September and Kara should be back in time for that.
-Sue Bird (West) and Deanna Nolan (East) were named WNBA players of the week. Congrats to those two (Bird's second this year!).
Tight games tonight:
Seattle Storm @ New York Liberty (7:30 pm)
Phoenix Mercury @ Detroit Shock (7:30 pm)
Minnesota Lynx @ San Antonio Silver Stars (8:00 pm)
Connecticut Sun @ Sacramento Monarchs (10:00 pm)
Atlanta Dream @ Los Angeles Sparks (10:30 pm)
Liberty will beat Storm: Lauren Jackson is out with a stress fracture in her back (OUCH!). Not sure on when she'll be back. The Liberty want to "save face" for their poor season in front of their home crowd. They will spoil Bird's return to her home state.
Mercury, Sun win on the road; Silver Stars and Sparks win at home.
Looks like ZERO games are on TV despite 5 that any major television network could choose from. Looking at the ESPN TV lineup: professional women's basketball is not being shown because the 2009 World Series of Poker is on ESPN. I'm fine with tennis on ESPN 2, but poker is worthy of air time over women's basketball?! Of course poker gets more "watching audience" then women's basketball...it's on all of the time. Ugh....
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