The tourney is on:
I Bet Your Brackets Are Screwed.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I’m really excited. Both the Univ. of Washington and Gonzaga are in the tourney. The Husky men play at noon today…. against Montana. I wonder if Montana will be giant-killers — like Gonzaga was a few years ago. Of course, the Husky men have had such poor or so-so teams for so long that it is wonderful they got a historic #1 ranking. When my daughter was young, we had season tickets to the Univ of Wash women’s basketball games, which were truly, truly wonderful and thrilling. And we went to the Sweet Sixteen women’s games. We also went to some men’s games, including one against the storied UTEP team.
I confess I haven’t followed college basketball enough in the past 10 years but have a love for the NCAA games and the always thrilling upsets.
is starting up. I hate it when Princeton isn’t in the tourney. Petey Carill where are you?
Did Carroll retire?
he was an assistant for the Sacremento Kings.
BTW- For those of you from Princeton, he said the one thing he missed was the Carousel Diner.
No doubt.
I think something called “Carousel” is there but it’s all clean and new and… well… it ain’t the Carousel! Carrill is still with the Kings.
forget when you nearly accosted Petey at Reunions.
You scared the hell out of him.
Well, I had to tell him what a God he was. But all he was interested in was his wife (?) girlfriend (?)– about 30 years younger and a foot taller than him! Ah Reunions… What fond memories… if only I could remember.
is getting throttled.
it kinda sounds the same
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pacific
try a little projection
its basketball, you don’t have to be loyal to one team, it isn’t football
Join Soonergrunt and myself
BOOMER SOONERS
hang out with an okie, and someone from Oklahoma
I really want to talk to him.
out of town for a week
For linking to the women’s tourney. Over the past 10 years or so, this lifelong hoop junkie has become more and more a fan of the women’s game–though I admit, that got its start only because Rebecca Lobo went to the same nowhere high school I did. However, like Johnny Wooden, I’ve come to believe that the best displays of good sound fundamental basketball today are among the top women’s basketball programs.
For those who don’t follow the women’s game but may have a passing interest at tournament time, a few notes:
This may be the most wide-open tourney ever in the history of the women’s game, the growing popularity of th game means a wider distribution of top talents, and with the one and only Diana Taurasi finally graduated from UConn last year, there are no prohibitive favorites.
I’d make LSU the favorite, led by Seimone Augustus, as pure and sweet a balla as you’d want to see anywhere, winner of the USBWA Player of the Year award. Lightning quick, good height for a guard (a 6-1 guard in the women’s game is the relative equivalent of a 6-5 guard in the men’s game), she can score in bunches, when her mid-range jumper is on she’s just about unstoppable. The perfect complement is energizer bunny point guard Temeka Johnson. The Tigers interior is anchored by physical 6-5 frosh Sylvia Fowles, who drew national attention by dunking in a high school game.
North Carolina is perhaps the only team in the country with the ability to run with LSU, in fact the Heels may be even faster, with do-everything point guard Ivory Latta leading the frenzied UNC pace. Forwards Erlana Larkins and La’tangela Atkinson can outrun most frontcourts, so Latta always has someone running the lanes with her on the break.
Michigan State is solid and disciplined, and much more physical than people are used to seeing in the women’s game, playing the Spartans leaves opponents pretty well beat up. They run big frontline people at you in waves, led by All-American Liz Shimek. Ball handling and outside shooting from Lindsay Bowen and Kristin Haynie make MSU a balanced threat.
Although half of their highly touted “six-pack” of outstanding frosh are sidelined with injuries, as usual Pat Summitt has her Tennessee Lady Vols once again occupying a #1 seed. Led by do-it-all senior forward Shyra Ely and deadly long-range shooting from Shanna Zolman and Brittany Jackson (babe-i-tude alert!), Tennessee must always be considered a threat to go all the way. For Ely the stakes are personally high, having seen UConn win every year that she has been in college must make this year seem like an opportunity to reclaim the brass ring for the LVs.
Not to be sneezed at:
Stanford: Led by freshman phenom Candace Wiggins (daughter of ex-major league baseball player Alan Wiggins), this may be the best Stanford squad since their glory days in the early 90s.
Duke: Although playing without a true point guard, the Blue Devils are loaded with talent, the multidimensional Monique Curry leading the way, superb outside shooter Aussie Jess Foley, and the utterly mammoth (about 6-7 250) Allison Bales in the middle.
Ohio State: Any team that features an athlete as talented as 6-4 center Jessica Davenport has to be considered a threat.
Baylor: Can a two-person team win it all? Probably not, but Steffanie Blackmon and Sophia Young are fully capable of putting that theory to the test. Kim Mulkey-Robertson has turned around a program that was once the laughing stock of the Big 12 to make them a serious competitor for the national championship.
UConn (full disclosure–my favorite team in all of sports): With Taurasi gone, the Huskies stumbled most of the year, but as Geno Auriemma has noted, “there are only 8 kids in America that have won the national championship and they all play for me.” In their run through the Big East tournament, including back-to-back dispatching of top 10 ranked Notre Dame and Rutgers, junior forward Barbara Turner returned to form after a season of being hobbled with injuries. A new wrinkle added late in the season has been to have 6-2 shooting guard Ann Strother take advantage of her height by posting up, creating terrible mismatches for opponents to deal with. Future superstar freshman Charde Houston, who broke Cheryl Miller’s California high school scoring record, has shown flashes of her potential during the season, and how far the Huskies go may depend on how well she elevates her game in the tournament. (Go, Huskies, 4-peat!!!)
Rutgers: C Vivian Stringer recruits the best street ball players and turns them loose, and her back court tandem of Cappie Pondexter and Matee Ajavon may be second only to LSU’s Augustus and Johnson as a backcourt duo. When Rutgers loses it is usually because those two forget to get senior forward Chelsea Newton involved in the ofense, and that will be the key to watch with regard to the Scarlet Knights.
Sleepers: Notre Dame, Temple.
When we went to the Univ of Wash. women’s games, it was like the “in” thing in town. We regularly saw Seahawk players, hydroplane racers, TV newscasters, and lots of lesbians.
The men I talked to at the games said they came because it was real basketball.
Will the Horizon Conference get respect next year?
This is the second time in three years that a Horizon team managed to win the first two rounds when seeded 12th.
Go Panthers.