14 Sunday Apr 2013
The UConn Huskies won their 8th National Championship and sends seniors Kelly Farris, Caroline Doty, and Heather Buck on a high note. Fab Frosh Breanna Stewart sparked the Huskies run and won over Notre Dame in the semis despite the Irish beating them for three games this year. The Huskies won over Louisville 96 – 30, with Stewie scoring 23 points.
26 Monday Mar 2012
Posted in Sports
Boy am I out of it this year (even more so than last year when March Madness meant the Great Tohoku Quake and Tsunami more than the annual college basketball craziness). Haven’t got any idea what’s going on in the baller world, be that the international scene (UMMC Ekaterinburg for Birdy and Ros Casares — or whatever — for LJ) or the Women’s NCAA (but enough to know that UConn’s not that invincible this year).
But anyway, better late than never, right? At least I checked in right before the Elite Eight. So without further ado — WAIT, the Zags are done for the season. Bummer. Read somewhere in Twitter that they might be missing Vandersloot more than they realized. Well, okay then, get it over and done with, move on with the show.
———-
PICKS
———-
Des Moines Region – Baylor vs Tennessee
Obvious pick is obvious, duh, Griner — BAYLOR
Raleigh Region – Notre Dame vs Maryland
Haven’t seen how Maryland plays but I’m just gonna go with the fact that ND was in the championship game last year and Skylar Diggins is still playing for the Irish. Pick — NOTRE DAME
Fresno Region – Stanford vs Duke
Ogwumike Sisters. ‘Nuff said. — STANFORD
Kingston Region – Connecticut vs Kentucky
Samarie Walker vs her former team. Whatever. KML, Bria Hartley, Kelly Frakking Farris, Tiff Hayes, Dolton, and DOTY! As if I’ll pick anyone over UConn. — CONNECTICUT
21 Sunday Aug 2011
Tags
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRWf1YUXCcE
30 Thursday Jun 2011
And because it’s the Women’s World Cup, my desktop wall cheers with me.
#GoHopeSolo
05 Sunday Jun 2011
Posted in WNBA
# Double-double to start the season. Attagirl, Birdy.
# LJ was too quiet in the first half tho.
# Swin and the Refs — it’s been a hate/hate relationship since last season.
# Camille Little almost gave me a heart attack. Good thing that was no ACL tear or something. A sprain is still painful but at least not ACL.
# Katie Smith. Man. She awesome, yes?
# It’s the first game but man, T.Wright, get your shit together, okay?
# WNBA Liveaccess looking all snappy and shit. I love it. Too bad I can’t find the 2010 Archives tho. Aren’t those available anymore? *Sobs*
# Storm over Phoenix — 78 – 71.
15 Friday Apr 2011
Tags
There’s this great write-up by Nate Parham over at Swish Appeal about WNBA Point Guards. Basically it has stats and other intangibles that made Seattle Storm Point Guard Sue Bird successful during the 2010 WNBA Season (and hopefully in 2011 still).
Photo by Kailas Images.
30 Wednesday Mar 2011
Posted in Sports
A few vids I found while still on this basketball high after watching the NCAA Regional Finals this morning. They’re a sort of behind the scenes all-access video thing of the UConn Women’s Basketball during the 2009-2010 season.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYcoFwmNiko
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grrlt50Zdag
30 Wednesday Mar 2011
Posted in Sports
UCONN vs NOTRE DAME | STANFORD vs TEXAS A&M
Okay, let’s not discuss that I scored an astounding 1 out of 4 in my picks. That goes without saying that this year’s Elite Eight has nothing been short of entertaining and surprising, even if it lacks that quintessential Cinderella story.
So Vandersloot and the Zags fell to Stanford, right? And that Skylar Diggins and the Fighting Irish upset the Tennessee Lady Vols yesterday. This morning, Maya Moore scored her 3000th point in a 35-point rout of the Duke Blue Devils, and Texas A&M’s Sydney Carter pushed her team over Brittney Griner’s 1st-seeded Baylor Bears and that’s with Danielle Adams struggling.
Texas A&M Aggies : 1st Final Four in school history
Stanford Cardinal : 4th straight Final Four
Notre Dame Fighting Irish : 1st time since 2001
Connecticut Huskies : 12th Final Four
* * *
With that said, I’m pulling for a UCONN – STANFORD final.
* * *
The AP All-America Team was released.
FIRST TEAM
Maya Moore (Connecticut)
Brittney Griner (Baylor)
Jeannette Pohlen (Stanford)
Danielle Adams (Texas A&M)
Jantel Lavender (Ohio State)
SECOND TEAM
Danielle Robinson (Oklahoma)
Amber Harris (Xavier)
Courtney Vandersloot (Gonzaga)
Nnemkadi Ogwumike (Stanford)
Jasmine Thomas (Duke)
THIRD TEAM
Shekinna Stricklen (Tennessee)
Shenise Johnson (Miami)
Victoria Dunlap (Kentucky)
Ta’Shia Phillips (Xavier)
Skylar Diggins (Notre Dame)
29 Tuesday Mar 2011
Posted in Sports
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7h0iPhIrk
I blame my location and lack of coverage of Gonzaga games. Also work coz it devours time. And the frakking Tohoku Earthquake for throwing our lives in disarray when I could have focused on basketball. Okay, just for throwing our lives in disarray and wiping out cities and killing thousands and causing rolling blackouts and nuclear cores melting and radioactive isotopes escaping into every-fucking-where, never mind the fact that I couldn’t watch my basketball games. People have lost everything and some people are still risking their lives to solve the whole nuke thing and babies are seriously not allowed to drink Tokyo tap water because radioactive particles were found in the filtering plant and ugh, I know it’s been all said and done but when is this ever going to stop?
So anyway, to distract myself from the daily worries (it quaked again earlier, epicenter was at Fukushima, M6.4), I should have found out about Courtney Vandersloot earlier and probably have waxed poetic about her point guarding skills more than what’s necessary. You know, because my fave player on earth is still Sue ‘D!e B!tchez’ Bird and we all know that girl is in a league of her own when it came to being a point guard. Vandersloot’s draft stock had been upped since the Zags won the WCC Tourney and she set a record or something (2000 pts 1000 asts in all of NCAA Ball and most assists in a single season, I think). Will she be an early pick? I hope so. And I also hope that someone from the Western Conference drafts her — I gotta watch her play against the best of the best and, sorry you guys, coz I’m always wearing Storm goggles, that would be Birdy.
* * *
Fortunately for me I didn’t create my bracket at the start of the tourney (because of everything else that was happening here in Japan). If I did, I would have been dazed the whole day coz I scored an amazing 0 for 2 today. LOL. I picked the Lady Vols in Dayton because, really, if Simmons got it together, there was a chance, right? But she choked, the poor kid. And Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame was on a freaking mission so bracket broken there. And then, of course, Stanford just had to be awesome, right? With Pohlen finding her shot and the Ogwumike sisters doing just about anything right, Courtney Vandersloot couldn’t beat the Cardinal without her teammates, and so the Zags lost. Bracket fail again.
Ugh. I hope I get the last two later. Or at least the Philly Region. Coz if my pick in the Philly Region loses, Imma boycott the rest of the Final Four LOL.
28 Monday Mar 2011
Posted in Sports
Tags
March Madness \o/
Whew. Georgetown gave us quite a scare there. Of course practically all their shots had to fall, right? It also didn’t help that the Huskies looked like they were practically clueless on offense. Maya Moore’s shots weren’t falling early, Tiffany Hayes wasn’t dominant, Stefanie Dolson was being pushed around by the Georgetown “posts”, and Bria Hartley was going from left to right and looked really tentative most of the time.
And then, Lorin Dixon happened. The senior sparked the run that made the Huskies recover lost ground (down 7 or something), executed key defensive plays, and hit a baseline jumper. Credit must also go to Bria Hartley who looked like she gained confidence from whatever Dixon had made happen. Maya Moore was relatively quiet except towards the end where she did important plays to ensure the win. And of course, no one would be able to discount everything that Kelly Farris did to guard the Hoyas’ leading scorer Sugar Rodgers. Farris reminds me of Mel Thomas, a kind of a do-everything scrappy player that can guard almost anyone.
Bracketology
[Philadelphia Region]
Connecticut (35-1) vs Duke (32-3)
Pick: UConn. ‘Nuff said. Although they’d have to play harder and better than their game against Georgetown. Also, depth will be an issue but I’ll gamble on the fact that the Huskies have Maya Moore and everybody else doesn’t.
[Dayton Region]
Tennessee (34-2) vs Notre Dame (29-7)
Pick: Tennessee, just because it is going to be fun watching UConn meet the Vols in the Final Four, well, granted that the Huskies escape Duke.
[Dallas Region]
Baylor (34-2) vs Texas A&M (30-5)
Pick: Baylor. Griner, duh. Haha, kidding. I haven’t paid attention to this region except that Griner’s there and they grabbed the #1 rank from UConn during the regular season. It’ll be interesting how fast Stefanie Dolson would play against her if Baylor and UConn ever meets in the Finals.
[Spokane Region]
Stanford (32-2) vs Gonzaga (31-4)
Pick: Gonzaga. Just because I like Vandersloot and the fact that the Zags are the lowest ever seed (11th) to get into the Elite Eight. But aside from Vandersloot, I have no idea about the capabilities of the other Zags and how they would match up with the bigs of Stanford. Interesting to note here, also, is if Pohlen of Stanford finally wakes up from her shooting draught, I think Zags will find it very difficult to win.
[Final Four Picks]
UConn vs Tennessee → UConn
Baylor vs Gonzaga → Baylor
***
Thank goodness for March Madness. This certainly takes my mind off the aftershocks and the radiation scare.