UConn Women Feted at the White House

There are three other videos embedded above the Hartford Courant article, below; the ceremony, and interviews with Geno Auriemma and Rene Montgomery.

Hartford Courant: UConn Makes White House Visit

WASHINGTON — - Long before he became a candidate, President Barack Obama was a huge basketball fan. Well documented during the presidential campaign, his alter ego is that of a gym rat — a guy with a nice first step, decent jumper and pointy elbows.

And after the ceremony on Monday welcoming the national champion UConn women's basketball team to the White House, Obama decided to prove it. He invited them to the basketball court he had constructed on the White House grounds.

"We played P-I-G, which is a shorter version of H-O-R-S-E," UConn center Tina Charles said. "He beat Maya [Moore], Renee [Montgomery] and myself. He was shooting 17-footers all over the perimeter."

Said Montgomery: "He only missed one shot out of five shots. In 20 years, I'll remember that I could not make one jump shot at the White House. My clothes hindered me. I couldn't extend my arms."

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
HONORING THE 2008-2009 NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS,
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM

Obama Picked a Women's Bracket

Maybe he read my email? The Hartford Courant reports that the President's media team contacted them to let them know that he did pick a women's bracket as well, and that he picked UConn to win it all.

I emailed the Prez on whitehouse.gov and asked him to fill out a women's bracket. And I gave him some bad advice (don't pick as many upsets when filling out a women's bracket, which is so WRONG this year) and some good advice (pick Connecticut to win it all, because otherwise you will look stupid.) So maybe he took my advice.

Hartford Courant: Obama Picks UConn Women To Win

President Barack Obama's media people contacted The Courant today to let them know he had also filled out a women's NCAA tournament basketball bracket - to go with his more publicized men's bracket. His pick to win? UConn.

"The president believes the University of Connecticut is a fine institution with a wonderful basketball program," Moira Muntz, a spokesman for the president, said. She did not know who Obama's other Final Four picks were.

Muntz told The Courant Tuesday that the president had filled out a women's bracket, in addition to a men's bracket that was done for ESPN, and that No.1 UConn was his choice to win the title.

RIP Kay Yow (Updated)

Kay Yow died today. She was 66 and had fought breast cancer for 22 years.

I met Kay Yow once, at the Women's Final Four in Los Angeles in 1992. She was there for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association convention. We rode in an elevator down to the lobby with her. They were glassed in elevators that made a lot of people nervous. She was tall and lean, rangy and a little stooped over. (I didn't know she was a cancer survivor already). She had a rough, husky voice and an electric presence. She told some joke that had a slightly bawdy punchline, laughed uproariously at her own joke, said goodbye to everyone on the elevator and strode off when the doors opened.

That's the way I'll remember Kay Yow, the force of nature I met that day.

RIP Kay Yow.


NewsObserver.com: Yow's story touched players, fans

Mechelle Voepel, ESPN.com: Yow's considerable efforts will live on

AP: Kay Yow, Basketball Coach, Dies at 66

NewsObserver.com: A Chronology of Kay Yow's Life

Photo Gallery, Kay Yow, 1942-2009

UPDATE: Go to this link for a wide-ranging interview with Kay Yow (did you know her first name was Sandra?) as part of the University of North Carolina's Southern Oral History Program Collection. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript of the interview.

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

Women's Final Set

NYTimes: Candice Wiggins (11), the ebullient guard who was named national player of the year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, delivered 25 points, 13 rebounds and 5 assists for Stanford.
Photo: Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images


Stanford will play Tennessee for the national championship on Tuesday night. Ice v. Ace, that is, Candice Wiggins of Stanford, the Wade Trophy player of the year winner, v. Candace Parker of Tennessee, AP Player of the Year. And for the fourth year in a row, both coaches in the final are women. No male coach has gotten his team into the final since Geno did it last with Taurasi in 2004. (This isn't an issue in the men's game as men's basketball is still segregated by gender on the coaching side.)

Stanford did a great job on Connecticut (box score), in an exciting and watchable semi last night. (Except for the ever-annoying announcers, the self-important Doris Roberts and half-dead Mike Patrick. Anyone else, please, ESPN.) Connecticut didn't get much from its frontcourt (Hunter 0, McClaren 2, Charles 9, Houston 10) and that was that. Stanford played an outstanding game, got assists on over 75% of its baskets (28 baskets, 20 assists), outrebounded Connecticut 43-37, and shot lights out down the stretch. Wiggins had 25 points and 13 rebounds from the guard position.

The second game was a dreary affair of missed shots and free throws (box score). The end was exciting, but a great final 10 seconds didn't make up for the tediousness of the whole game. The leading scorers were Parker for Tennessee (who shot 6 for 27 from the floor) and Fowles for LSU (a blistering 10 for 24). Ugly.

I'll be rooting for Stanford to knock Tennessee off its perch as national champions.

Harvey Araton, NYTImes: At Peace With Memory of Father’s Fall

Harvey Araton, NYTimes: The Top 10 Reasons to Cover the Women’s Final Four

Another UConn Fan

 

Tuesday evening, March 25, 2008, Arena at HarborYard, Bridgeport, CT

Maya Moore: Perfect Form

 

Maya Moore (Renee Montgomery and Assistant Coach Tonya Cardoza in background), open practice, Arena at Harbor Yard, Bridgeport, CT, March 22, 2008

UConn Fan

 

Arena at Harbor Yard, Bridgeport, CT, March 25, 2008, before the UConn-Texas game

Hiatus

Maya Moore hits a fall away jumper over Alyssa May, No. 10, and Ashley McLaughlin of Holy Cross during the first half. (JOHN WOIKE / November 14, 2007)
Hartford Courant

I'm heading to New York to pick up Coach Mom. We're heading to Bridgeport, CT tomorrow to see the first and second round women's NCAA basketball games there. Looking forward to tomorrow's open practices as well. Go UConn! Maya Moore! Geno! Sweet.

Back next Friday.

The Imus Effect

Sylwia Kapuscinski for The New York Times
C. Vivian Stringer and her Rutgers players at a news conference last year. They made an impression on recruits with the way they handled Don Imus.

C. Vivian Stringer had her biggest recruiting year ever at Rutgers -- five, count 'em, FIVE McDonald's All-Americans have committed to Rutgers for next year.

Way to go Viv.

On the October morning Chelsey Lee awoke with her decision made, her destination clear, she summoned Shirlene Horne into her room and said, “Mommy, I’m going to commit.”

Connecticut or Rutgers? Geno Auriemma or C. Vivian Stringer? Horne had promised to withhold her opinion until her daughter, a 6-foot-3 center from Parkway Academy in Miami, disclosed the one that mattered most.

“Rutgers,” Lee said.

Horne hugged her and whispered, “I was feeling that, too.”

In Crawford, Miss., April Sykes, a 5-11 guard/forward ranked as high as No. 2 in the country by some scouting services, got on board the same northern-bound train as Lee, her A.A.U. teammate. A 5-9 point guard from Pasadena with the splendid positional name of Nikki Speed was also feeling Rutgers, over Duke. In Fort Worth, Brooklyn (no relation to the borough) Pope, a 6-2 forward, was resisting in-state pressure, opting to weather the comparatively daunting winters of central New Jersey.

Add Jasmine Dixon, a 5-11 guard from Long Beach, Calif., and Stringer has what every college basketball coach dreams of in a single incoming class — five McDonald’s all-Americans from across a continent she now calls her recruiting base.

Thank you, after all, Don Imus.

“He pretty much put Rutgers on the map,” said Janice Pope, the mother of Brooklyn.

[]

[] Then came last season’s run to the final, falling short of Stringer’s first title against Tennessee, followed by the seismic event of Stringer and her players, most notably Carson, standing up on national television for themselves and for young African-American women everywhere.

“Hearing E speak, oh my goodness, it was amazing,” Nikki Speed said, already relating to Carson on a first-initial basis. “We still talk about that now, but when I was watching it, I remember thinking, that’s what I want to learn, that’s how I want to carry myself, like a proud African-American woman.”

Brooklyn Pope had another thought that day, concentrated on Stringer, during the coach’s characteristically eccentric but emotionally irresistible appeal.

“When I was looking at the television that day, I was like, ‘Dang, that’s not a coach, she’s like their mother,’ ” Pope said. “She defended them like they were her own children.”

In separate telephone interviews, three of the Rutgers recruits — Pope, Lee and Speed — all spoke of the close-knit family Rutgers appeared to be on television, and later, upon visiting, in real college life.

Maya Moore Could Be the Best Ever

So good that even the New York Times, which generally ignores women's sports, writes about her:

NYTimes: In Freshman Season, Moore Shows UConn What May Come