the night….*all sing* Oh, what a night!
The bus pulled up to 25th and Diamond streets and the defending NCAA women’s basketball champions all piled out. The South Carolina Gamecocks arrived Wednesday straight from practice over at Temple, where they’ll play Thursday night. Their coach, Dawn Staley, got too busy hugging people on the sidewalk, starting with her older brother, to notice the plastic wrapping over the street sign at the corner.
That team bus, coincidently, had the words Champion Coach on its side.
Staley, who has Made in North Philly as the screensaver on her phone, had grown up two blocks over. This was her recreation center, now named for the late legend Hank Gathers, who had told some leery neighborhood regulars more than three decades ago how they had to let this little girl Dawn play ball with them.
From Doug: Dawn Staley has Philadelphia homecoming to remember
The women’s basketball coach at South Carolina returned to Philadelphia this week with her defending NCAA champion Gamecocks to play Temple. It wasn’t her first time back in the city where she grew up since winning the national title in April. But this was a special trip for the Hall of Famer. She was going to her old stomping grounds, where she honed her skills as a player, to donate a replica NCAA championship trophy to the Hank Gathers Recreation Center.
Her hometown had a surprise for one of its favorites, too. The city proclaimed Wednesday Dawn Staley Day and renamed a street right where she grew up as Dawn Staley Lane.
“You don’t dream of streets being named after you,” Staley said after her fourth-ranked team routed Temple 87-60 on Thursday night. “You dream about gold medals, winning national championships. That stuff hits you like a body blow you’re not prepared for when it comes from people who genuinely care for you. It makes it truly special.”
Swish Appeal: Candice Dupree’s powerful words about South Carolina’s Dawn Staley
Unbeaten Tennessee wins at Stanford, drops Cardinal to .500
No one who has watched this rivalry over most of the past three decades would have mistaken this game for the heavyweight battles of years past. Neither program is in that vaunted place at this moment in time.
But for the first time since most of the current Tennessee players were in elementary school, the Lady Vols walked out of Maples Pavilion with a win.
It was immediately apparent how much the Stanford women’s basketball team missed its star senior guard Brittany McPhee. She scored 15 of the Cardinal’s first 26 points and finished with a season-high 27.
It wasn’t enough to save No. 18 Stanford from losing to No. 7 Tennessee, 83-71, on Thursday, sending the Cardinal (6-6) into the Pac-12 Conference with its worst start after 12 games opening the 1998-99 season 4-8, when it finished 18-12 and got beat in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
*all sing* The
first loss is the deepest… #5 Mississippi State did the honors, as the stopped the Orange,
76-65.
#9 West Virginia stayed undefeated, but they got a good tussle from Morehead State,
66-56.
“(It was a) sloppy game,” coach Mike Carey said. “I’m just glad this nonconference is over. I’m glad to start playing Big 12 games. We need to move forward.”
Cranky after their loss to Wright State, Belmont
punishes Vanderbilt,
111-74. (The last time the Belmont women beat Vanderbilt was in 1981.)
Upset: Norfolk State went to OT to defeat William & Mary, 80-74.
Kayla Roberts’ perfect overtime Thursday night helped the Norfolk State women win their fourth in a row and guaranteed the Spartans at least a .500 record in nonconference play for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
Wicked ugly, but a win is a win from Powell and
Grand Canyon.
Good win for Quinnipiac over Central Michigan, 84-70.
Still undefeated: Ball State withstands a fourth quarter surged from Western Kentucky to move to 11-0.
Stubborn Northern Iowa isn’t having a great season so far, but they did beat Kantate, 72-71.
Woof! In the battle of very similar-looking mascots, Gonzaga mauled Western Illinois (perhaps a little upset hangover?), 80-65. You think I’m kidding? Look! Cousins!
Upcoming games I have my eye on: Oh, right. We’ve hit that serious lull…sigh.
WNBA
Overseas: Fowles, Griner Continuing Dominance
Thank you for your leadership: Minnesota Lynx coach and VP come out publicly as married couple
Sweet! Spurs’ Hammon named candidate for Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018
Note to reporters: Umm…. any word on who’s buying the Lib? (Hello, Rosie? Beyonce? Leslie?)
News:
US Army: Love for basketball leads Soldiers to All-Army Women’s Basketball team
The air in the gym is thick and the only sounds are the air conditioning vents blowing from the ceiling, shining down like outsized opaque crystal balls.
Suddenly, the echoes of basketballs bouncing off the wood floor rumble through the bleachers. Whoosh, goes a ball through the net.
The All-Army Women’s Basketball Team has come to play.
Congrats! JMU putting 1981-82 basketball team into its athletics hall of fame
Oh, Canada! Huskies star guard Nurse says ‘hometown game’ was a complete surprise
From Lois (And thank you, Amsterdam Times, for consistently giving space to women’s basketball): Hofstra performs valiantly in the face of injuries
It has been a rough opening to the 2017-18 season for Hofstra University women’s basketball. The Pride has been beset by injuries—at times only suiting up seven people for a game—and finals break couldn’t come fast enough for coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey.
Listen Up! Around the Rim:
LaChina Robinson celebrates the 1,000 win milestones of UConn’s Geno & UNC’s Sylvia Hatchell by chatting with Coach Hatchell herself, plus we hear from the coaches’ former players: Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Ivory Latta, and Sylvia Crawley.
Speaking of “Listen Up!” Congrats: The is one of our staff faves for 2017! “A feminist podcast that’s a must-listen for anyone who likes sports and politics,” notes
Oh, Duck: Oregon will contest allegations by NCAA against men’s and women’s basketball, track and field programs (upon reading the article, doesn’t to seem to be a huge mess for wbb.)
Nice piece on Mel by Mike Jensen: Mel Greenberg is still the women’s hoops guru after almost 50 years in journalism
There he was, the Guru, as he doesn’t mind being called, across from Temple’s bench at McGonigle Hall, usual spot, rumply presence as ordinary as a pregame layup line. This was early on a Sunday afternoon. For this man, early might mean late. What time was it for him?
“Still yesterday,” said a man now into his fifth decade of covering women’s college basketball.
From the Atlantic: The #MeToo movement comes to sports, a reckoning long overdue
A year ago this month seven of us sat around a table and raised our glasses. We were a formidable lot — two sports columnists, a sports editor, a sports writer, a preeminent baseball reporter, a former sports executive, a legendary sports journalist who now advises teams — and we had plenty to toast.
We toasted fond memories of remarkable games we had covered, athletes we admired, the Olympics where we met, that World Series we’d never forget. And, above all, we toasted the survivors. We toasted our kick-ass selves.
There’s a famous line every female inevitably learns when she enters the world of sports: Check your dignity at the door. From a young age girls are told to not make trouble, and if those girls yearn for a career in sports they might as well write that adage on the back of their hand.
Really? Chris Brown’s Movie About Women’s Basketball Is Already Facing Backlash
On December 19, Variety reported that Nick Cannon would be directing, writing, producing, and starring in She Ball, a movie about women’s street basketball. The official plot, according to Variety, reads: “She Ball follows the love of the game through the struggles of Avery Watts, played by Cannon, who enlists the baddest women’s streetball league in the city to help him save the embattled Inglewood Community Center, which he manages, all while trying to raise his seven-year-old daughter.” So yes, it appears that a film about women that should, in theory, star women, is somehow being re-centered to focus on a man. But that isn’t the only red flag that has been raised.
REALLY? Brawl at Women’s Basketball Game
I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying: Women’s Basketball Team Surprises Manager With Special Gift
A loss: Urbana mourns loss of veteran girls basketball coach Bill Moss
He also helped groom former Urbana standouts Beth Ostendorf, Jannon Roland and most recently Trischa Lacy. Roland starred on the two state title teams, was the D-II player of the year and also was the Big Ten player of the year at Purdue University. She played in the WNBA.
“Bill was an innovator and pioneer in this sport,” said Jim Dabbelt of the Dabbelt Report, which focuses mostly on area girls basketball.
“Back when AAU was in the early stages, he ran the Urbana AAU program and it was the standard-setter for girls AAU in Ohio. They made several trips to the nationals and that was back when the nationals really meant something.”
It’s that time of year: From Mechelle: Top 10 moments in women’s basketball in 2017
With 2018 just around the corner, what were the biggest stories in women’s basketball this year?
These 10 moments moved the needle in 2017, both in the college game and the WNBA.
Whaddayamean you didn’t get your favorite wbball fan a gift! Check out the WHB library to find the perfect book for them.
Have a lovely holiday, all. Hug the ones you love, cheer the teams you support, and click through the links you see…
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