Saturday, May 15, 2010

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Saturday May 15th



Who: The Atlanta Dream (0-0) take on the San Antonio Silver Stars (0-0).

Here are the final rosters of both clubs:

Atlanta: Alison Bales, Iziane Castro Marques, Erika de Souza, Chamique Holdsclaw, Shalee Lehning, Sancho Lyttle, Angel McCoughtry, Coco Miller, Kelly Miller, Armintie Price, Brittainey Raven

San Antonio: Jayne Appel, Helen Darling, Megan Frazee, Becky Hammon, Roneeka Hodges, Crystal Kelly, Edwige Lawson-Wade, Ruth Riley, Belinda Snell, Michelle Snow, Sophia Young

What: The first of two regular season games against the Silver Stars. Every Eastern Conference team (Atlanta) plays a home-and-away during the regular season against each Western Conference team (San Antonio). Last year the Dream swept the season series against San Antonio, winning in San Antonio 92-84 on August 6th and then winning at home in Atlanta 93-87 on August 20th.

Where: The AT&T Center at San Antonio.

When: Tipoff is at at 8 pm Eastern time, today. (May 15, 2010.) This game should be available on WNBA Live Access.

Why: We get our very first, for-real-honest-and-for-true look at the Atlanta Dream, as this game counts. Chamique Holdsclaw will not be suiting up - she never came to Training Camp and she wants a trade - but until the Dream can deal her she takes up roster space. With Alison Bales having not played in the previous year, with rookie Brittainey Raven, and with Erika de Souza literally having got off the plane two days ago, it will be interesting to see how the Dream handles the adversity of playing in San Antonio against a packed house for the Silver Stars home opener. (And the next day, the Dream opens in Atlanta.)

The Angel McCoughtry tour continues as McCoughtry will compete against rookie Jayne Appel out of Stanford. Appel was a highly-touted player for Stanford - some thought she had a chance to being drafted #2 - but a poor national championship game caused Appel's draft stock to fall. The last game McCoughtry played was against Connecticut and Tina Charles in the pre-season; we'll see how well Appel fares against Atlanta.

San Antonio has a few changes. The most important is at the coaching level. Dan Hughes, a great WNBA coach, has moved up to General Manager. His successor, Sandy Brondello, is out on pregnancy leave, so associate coach Olaf Lange will try to steer the Silver Stars to victory.

There's a revenge factor in this game as the Dream face center Michelle Snow for the first time wearing an enemy uniform since Snow played for the Houston Comets in 2008. Snow was a back-up in 2009 for the Dream after many thought she'd be a starter. Snow starts over in San Antonio, who needs a center after Ann "The Belgian Waffle" Wauters decided to sit out the season. Snow has the opportunity to make Meadors look like a fool or a genius depending on how well Snow can do against the All-Star Duo of Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza.

1 comment:

Frisco Del Rosario said...

I don't think Appel's performance in the championship game was the reason for her dip in the draft — the braintrusts surely wouldn't change their estimation of Appel based on 35 minutes after watching her for four years. I think the teams that passed on her took the view that her ankle trouble might linger.