LFB (Spain) Queen's Cup Finals 2009 - Ros Casares 65, Ibiza 60

The players receive their individual trophies, each one a replica of the giant one.

Even though Ros Casares has a claim to being the best team in Spanish pro basketball, one should not count out Ibiza. Ibiza upset Euroleague semifinalist Perfumerias in the first round and played a close game against Ros Casares before falling 65-60 in the Queen's Cup finals.

Despite the loss, Sancho Lyttle was named the MVP of the Queen's Cup.

The box score is here. A gallery of the game is here and a gallery of championship photos is here.

The first half of the game might be explained away as a case of exhaustion - this was the third game both teams had played in three days and the first half was a low-scoring affair. El Ros only led 12-11 after the first quarter and Ibiza held Ros Casares to just nine second-quarter points to take a 25-21 lead into halftime.

Ibiza managed to hang on to the lead after three quarters, 46-41, but in the fourth quarter it was all Ros Casares - Ros Casares scored 24 fourth-quarter points, holding Ibiza to just 14 points in the final ten minutes. Ros Caseras took the lead with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, and never let it go.

Both teams were evenly accurate on the court - Ibiza hit 43 percent of its free throw attempts, and Ros Casares hit 42 percent - Ibiza also went 6-for-12 from 3-point distance. Ibiza outrebounded Ros Casares 32-27, but turned the ball over 21 times compared to Ros Casares's 17 turnovers. Both teams would hit 14 free throws - but compare Ros Casares's 14-for-15 shoooting with Ibiza's 14-for-24.

The two teams will next play each other this Saturday in a regular-season game.

Ros Casares

Anna Montañana: 16 points on 7-for-10 shooting.
Erika de Souza: 10 points and 9 rebounds. Only shot 3-for-10 but hit all for of her free throws.
Delisha Milton-Jones: 8 points in 24 minutes of play.
Candace Wiggins: 4 points in 13 minutes of play.

Ibiza

Sancho Lyttle: 13 points and 13 rebounds for the game's only double-double.
Silvia Morales Martin: 17 points and 3 rebounds.
Shannon Johnson: 7 points in 36 minutes of play. Five turnovers.

Greek Women's A1 Greek Cup 2009 Finals: Esperides 70, Paleo Faliro 58

Esperides celebrates their Greek Cup victory.

For the fourth straight year, Esperides wins the Greek Cup of women's basketball. This year, the victory was acheived with a 70-58 win over Paleo Faliro.

Of course, we don't have a box score for this game, so all I can write about are some highlights. We have a quarter-by-quarter score at least, and there is a translated write-up here.

It appears that Paleo Faliro fought hard. Down 36-28 at halftime, they managed to get within three points, 45-42 after three quarters and then tied the game 53-53. Unfortunately, Esperides scored 17 points in the overtime, which I suspect was a full 10 minutes instead of just five minutes.

Both Toya Kalentzi of Esperides (named Cup MVP) and Fotoula Volonaki of Paleo Faliro expressed their concern about Aris Holargos and their 93-23 loss to Paleo Faliro in the first round of the Cup. Kaletzni expressed pity that a group of under-18 girls had to suffer such a loss. Both players hoped that Aris Holargos would no longer be sending their under-18 girls to advanced cup play.

For our Greek readers out there, an abbreviated box score is here.

Paleo Faliro

Kristin Haynie: 14 points. 3-for-9 shooting.
Teana Miller: 14 points. 5-for-12 shooting. Possibly eight rebounds.

Esperides

Marina Mazic: 6 points.
Erica Davis: 19 points and 19 rebounds for the graduate of Yale University I might not be right on the rebounds, but she has put up ridiculous rebounding numbers in the Greek Women's A1.

This Week's Schedule

Here is this week's schedule for games involving Atlanta Dream players:

Tuesday:

LSBL: RTU-Merks (11-14) vs. SK Cēsis (22-2) *

Thursday:

Israel Women's D1: Maccabi Ramat Hen vs. Elitzur Maclaren Holon

Saturday:

LFB (Spain): Gran Canaria (5-16) vs. Estudiantes (4-17)
LFB (Spain): Ros Casares (20-1) vs. Ibiza (11-10)
LFB (Spain): Mariana (13-8) vs. Extrugasa (5-16)

Sunday

Greek Women's A1: Olympiada Larissas (7-14) vs. Paleo Faliro (13-8)
LSBL: SK Cēsis (22-2) vs. TTT Rīga (23-1) *

* Standings as of March 8, 2009

Busy Bee

After a busy weekend involving handiwork around the house, a visit to a 2 hour and 30 minute movie (Watchmen) and some college basketball on TV, along with losing an hour of time due to Daylight Stealing Time....

...well, I'm a bit behind in my blogging and today promises to be a busy day at work. I still need to get the finals of the Copa de la Reina up and come up with a schedule of this week's games.

So sorry for the delay.

LWBL 24/2008 - SK Cēsis 91, Liepājas Metalurgs 50

In front of a crowd of only 500 spectators on their home court, SK Cēsis (22-2) continues to roll up the opposition in the Latvia Women's Basketball League. The designated victim today was Liepājas Metalurgs (12-14) who were blown out on SK Cēsis's home court by a score of 91-50.

The box score is here.

There really isn't much to say about this game. SK Cēsis won every quarter and led 42-26 at halftime. SK Cēsis furthermore won the last quarter by sixteen points as I suspect that Liepājas Metalurgs mailed it in after the third quarter.

Liepājas Metalurgs only hit 31 percent of their field goal attempts, including 3-from-18 from behind the 3-point line in what must have been desperation shots. SK Cēsis, on the other hand, hit 53 percent of their shots. SK Cēsis out-rebounded their opponent's 44-32 and only turned the ball over 11 times. SK Cēsis would send Liepājas Metalurgs to the free throw line 23 times, but Liepājas Metalurgs would only hit 53 percent of their free throws. SK Cēsis would only hit 65 percent of their attempts, but with their other advantages this game would not be decided on the free throw line.

Amazingly, no one had a double-double in this game.

SK Cēsis

Sandra Dijon: 35 points and nine rebounds. It isn't the most points ever scored by SK Cēsis, but she shot 15-for-21 during the game.
Tamera Young: 12 points and 8 rebounds on 5-for-12 shooting.
Kristen Mann: 12 points, 4 assists and 8 rebounds on 4-for-9 shooting.

Liepājas Metalurgs

Sabīne Niedola: 20 points and 8 rebounds, but 5 turnovers.
Viktorija Nazarova: 11 points and 6 rebounds.

Hoping to have some pictures from this game. SK Cēsis is pretty good at providing pictures from Latvian league games.

Greek Women's A1 League Greek Cup Semifinals 2009 - Paleo Faliro 93, Aris Holargos 23

An image which might be from the Cup or just an archive image. We'll never know.

What if a country held a professional women's basketball tournament and no one cared? Such a chilling future would be found in Greece, where I only found out from the fine folks at Eurobasket.com that the Greek Cup for the women was being held over the weekend. Only four teams qualified: Paleo Faliro, Aris Holargos, Esperides and Panathinaikos.

Clearly, these seedings were determined a long time ago. With Aris Holargos's pro players walking out due to not getting paid - something I've reported at Pleasant Dreams already - according to Eurobasket, Aris Holargos is now playing with the players on their under-18 club. You can't say that the kids aren't getting some experience, but they're getting little else and most likely, not getting paid.

The only translated article I could find - forget finding a box score - is here. Here is the progression across quarters:

End of first: 29-5
End of second: 49-9
End of third: 70-16
End of fourth: 93-23

As the coach of Paleo Faliro said, this could have been a lot worse if Paleo Faliro didn't slow the game down. I wonder how much longer Greek women's pro basketball can survive with such spectacles presented as cup play.

I believe that Kristin Haynie scored either 2, 4, or 6 points. With the translation, it's very hard to tell. Paleo Faliro probably didn't need her anyway.

P. S.: It looks like some Greek fans are posting some information from these games on their blog. You can look at some pictures from the Esperides/Panathinaikos game, with even a live clip! (The author apologizes for the quality of the film, claiming that the camera had 'Alzheimers, stroke and multiple sclerosis'.)

Also: It looks like some troublemakers from the Panathinaikos fans began throwing water bottles on the court with just 28 seconds left, hitting a referee in the foot. To paraphrase Rebecca of Game Notes of Doom, "Greek basketball, this is why you can't have nice things."

But it looks like there will be a new basketball-devoted website at womba.gr and it looks like the fans have taken reporting into their own hands. Applause to the Greek bloggers.

LFB (Spain) Queen's Cup Semifinals - Ibiza 76, Celta 63

Dig those crazy socks on Sancho Lyttle.

It was Ibiza which shocked Spanish basketball with an upset win over Perfumerias in the first round of the Queen's Cup. Ibiza continues their winning ways with a 76-63 win over Celta, setting up a finals match on Sunday between Ibiza and Ros Casares.

The box score of the game is here. An album of photos for the game can be found here.

Ibiza would get off to a good first half start. Leading 23-18 after the first quarter, Ibiza would hold Celta to eight second quarter points while scoring 21 of their own for a 44-26 halftime lead. All Ibiza would have to do is hold the lead. Celta won the third quarter and closed the gap to 62-49 in favor of Ibiza, but Ibiza and Celta tied the fourth quarter for Ibiza to hold on to the win.

Ibiza hit 51 percent of its field goal attempts compared to only 41 percent for Celta. Celta, however, won the battle of rebounding - in overall rebounding both teams were tied but Celta had 10 offensive rebounds compared to just four from Ibiza. Both teams did an excellent job of holding on to the ball - Ibiza only turned the ball over nine times and Celta only had seven turnovers. Ibiza would get 19 visits to the free throw line compared to just six for Celta, and Ibiza would go 16-for-19 at the free throw line.

Ibiza

Shannon Johnson: 22 points and four assists. 7-for-10 shooting for the future member of the Seattle Storm.
Sancho Lyttle: 11 points, 11 rebounds. The only double-double in the game.
Sandra Pirsic: 13 points, 5 rebounds.

Celta

Iva Sliskovic: 16 points, 6 rebounds.
Agne Ciudarene: 11 points, 7 rebounds.

LFB (Spain) Queen's Cup Semifinals - Ros Casares 86, Olesa 69

Cristal Kelly needs some help in moving the ball past Erika de Souza.

The tank of a team known as Ros Casares continued rolling over the opposition yesterday with another win in the Queen's Cup, this time over Olesa.

The box score of the game is here. A collection of photos can be found here.

Olesa was actually able to play Ros Casares fairly close. After a 19-19 tied first quarter, Ros Casares had a slim 40-37 lead at halftime. However, El Ros won the third quarter 28-15 and played Olesa evenly across the fourth quarter to move on to the Queen's Cup finals on Sunday.

Neither team took many field goal attempts but Ros Casares was the more accurate team, hitting 48 percent of their attempts compared to 37 percent from Olesa. For once, however, it would be Olesa that won the battle of the boards, out-rebounding Ros Casares 36-27 and earning 13 offensive rebounds compared to Ros Casares's seven. Olesa turned the ball over four more times than El Ros altogether, but would go to the free throw line 25 times and hit 21 free throw attempts.

Ros Casares

Amaya Valedomoro: It was her turn to shine with 26 points and 4 rebounds. She shot 9-for-18 for the game.
Candace Wiggins: 12 points and 2 rebounds in 23 minutes of play.
Erika de Souza: 11 points and 9 rebounds.
Delisha Milton-Jones: 5 points and 3 rebounds in 19 minutes of play. Fouled out. 2-for-9 shooting.

Olesa

Tracy Reid: 10 points and 12 rebounds for the ex WNBA Rookie of the Year in one of two game double-doubles.
Cristal Kelly: 11 points and 8 rebounds for the Sacramento Monarchs forward.
Olga Podkovalnikova: 13 points and 10 rebounds for the second double-double.

BWBL 14/2008 - Olympia 78, SK Cēsis 77

It was the final game of the regular season for the Baltic Women's Basketball League. SK Cēsis (11-3) finished a long road trip to Belarus to play Olimpia (8-6) which is one of the best Belarussian teams. SK Cēsis would have finished second in the BWBL anyway, so there was nothing at stake. Even on the road, SK Cēsis came close to winning - last year, they lost 89-79 - but couldn't hold out, losing 78-77 to Olimpia.

The box score is here. To read the box score, click "View match statistics".

After a high first scoring first quarter, 30-23 in favor of Olympia, SK Cēsis closed the gap to one point, 45-44. At the end of the third quarter, SK Cēsis managed to take a 62-59 lead, but it fell apart in the fourth quarter. With two minutes left, SK Cēsis had closed to within two points, 74-72, but it would be the closest SK Cēsis got after losing the lead.

Olimpia hit 41 percent of its attempted field goals, compared to just 34 percent from the visitors. SK Cēsis, however, absolutley whipped Olimpia on the boards, out-rebounding the home team 55-39 and pulling down 19 rebounds compared to Olimpia's eight. SK Cēsis wouild also hit 18 out of 20 free throws, but it looks like those two missed free throws would have helped.

Olimpia

Natalia Anufryenko: 27 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds.
Tatiana Likhtorovich: 17 points and 13 rebounds. There would be three double-doubles in the game and this would be only one of them.
Olga Kopylova: 14 points, 8 rebounds.

SK Cēsis

Kristen Mann: 16 points and 12 rebounds from the former Atlanta Dream player - but she shot 6-for-24.
Sandra Dijon: 11 points, 12 rebounds.
Tamera Young: 15 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists. Unfortunately, 3-for-13 shooting but she did hit 8 out of 10 free throws.

Ros Casares vs. Estudiantes - The Video

We're all looking forward to Nikki Teasley playing for the Dream, but she didn't have much of a game playing for Estudiantes in her first pro game in some time. Then again, she was playing Ros Casares and Erika de Souza.

The above is the entire game. If you want to remind yourself of how it turned out, go to my earlier post.

LFB (Spain) Queen's Cup Quarterfinals 2008 - Ibiza 80, Perfumerias 65

Perfumerias, meet Sancho Lyttle.

Perfumerias has won all sorts of honors this year. They're in the quarter-finals of Euroleague. They're second in the Liga Feminina. With that in mind, you could forgive Perfumerias for slacking a little bit, as Perfumerias falls to Ibiza by the score of 80-65 on Friday.

Yesterday was the very first time that Perfumerias lost on its home court this season. Coach Jose Ignacio Hernandez admitted that it "hurts a lot".

The box score is here. An album of photos can be found here.

Ibiza won every quarter...but for the first three quarters, not by much. Ibiza led 36-32 at halftime and at the end of the third quarter, Ibiza only led by seven, 59-52. However, in the fourth quarter Ibiza held Perfumerias to only thirteen points.

Perfumerias hit 40 percent of their attempted field goals compared to Ibiza's 51 percent accuracy. Furthermore, Ibiza went 7-for-16 from 3-point range. Both teams rebounded well. As for holding on to the ball, Perfumerias turned the ball over 22 times but Ibiza returned the favor by sending Perfumerias to the line 22 times, where they hit 15 shots.

Perfumerias

Michelle Snow: the future Atlanta Dream player led Perfumerias with 19 points and 7 rebounds.
Silvia Dominguez Fernandez: 9 points and 5 rebounds.
Le'coe Willingham: 15 points and 7 rebounds from the Phoenix Mercury player.

Ibiza

Sancho Lyttle: Another standout game, with 26 points and 11 rebounds. She was clearly the player of the game.
Silvia Morales Martin: 16 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 5 steals.
Shannon Johnson: The future Seattle Storm player and longtime WNBA veteran had 10 points and 5 rebounds.

LFB (Spain) Queen's Cup Quarterfinals - Ros Casares 88, San José 60

Erika de Souza helps in making Shay Murphy's life miserable.

There are only eight teams that will play in the Copa de la Reina - the Queen's Cup - over three days in Spain. Regular season play is suspended for cup play. Two of those teams are Ros Casares and San José, and Ros Casares moved on to a semi-final game tomorrow with an 88-60 win.

The box score is here. An album of photos can be found here. Ros Casares will play its semifinal game tomorrow, and the finals will be held on Sunday.

Ros Casares would win every quarter of the game. After taking a 23-17 lead at the end of the first quarter, San José was held to just nine second quarter points as El Ros took a 42-26 lead into halftime. They would extend their lead by six points at the end of the third quarter, and by another six points at the end of the game.

Ros Casares hit 53 percent of its attempted field goals, including a 9-for-18 shooting day at the free throw line. San José only hit 32 percent of its attempted shot. Neither team handled the ball well - El Ros had 20 turnovers and San José had 23 - but both teams shot well at the free throw line with Ros Casares hitting 13 out of 16 of its free throw attempts.

Ros Casares

Erika de Souza: 15 points and 11 rebounds, despite six turnovers. She was the best player in the game with the only double-double.
Elisa Aguilar: 8 points, 9 assists.
Delisha Milton-Jones: 15 points, 6 rebounds
Candace Wiggins: 9 points
Amaya Valdemoro: 14 points and four turnovers.

San José

Lucia Pascua Suarez: 14 points, 6 rebounds.
Eshaya Murphy: 22 points, 4 rebounds, but 8 turnovers for the Washington Mystics player.
Kimberly Butler: 4 points and 3 rebounds in 30 minutes of play for the Oregon State graduate.

Israel Women's D1 Upper Round 1/2008 - Maccabi Ramat Hen 90, Maccabi Ashdod 79

From what I can understand, the ten teams of Israel's women's league all participate in the postseason - the top six teams fight for the championship and the bottom four fight for survival. Thus the "upper round" designation that Maccabi Ramat Hen finds itself in.

I waited all of yesterday for a box score but didn't get one. The best I can do is this nice writeup from Orli Klinger at safsal.co.il.

I'll try to hit the high points. First, Tamara James was released from Ramat Hen after their final regular season game. Why? Because LaToya Pringle is out with a knee injury and Ramat Hen realized just how weak they were in the post. Ayana Walker, a forward who last played for the Detroit Shock in 2007, took James's place.

In a rematch with Maccabi Ashdod - the team that beat Ramat Hen in the last game in the regular season and knocked them out of first place - Ashdod started out strong in the first half (just like the previous game) but this time, Ramat Hen found their way back.

Ramat Hen had a bad first half. According to Ivory Latta, "The first half things didn’t go our way, we couldn’t even hit the ocean out there." Ramat Hen was 1-for-13 in 3-point shooting and Ashdod led 48-41 in the third quarter.

Suddenly, Ramat Hen relocated their 3-point shooting. Latta hit back-to-back threes and Shay Doron hit a three to cut Ashdod's lead to one. From there, it was a seesaw battle until the fourth quarter when Noa Ganor broke a 72-72 tie with four minutes to go with a three pointer. Two more quick baskets by Ramat Hen, and they took a 79-72 lead that Ashdod wasn't able to overcome.

Ramat Hen

Ivory Latta: 22 points
Shay Doron: 21 points
Ayana Walker: 10 points

Ashdod

Natasha Lacy: 18 points from the former UTEP player who graduate in 2008.
Sherill Baker: 16 points from the Indiana Fever player.
Tasha Humphrey: 15 points from the Washington Mystics center.

Good and Plenty

I'm going to click on to something that Greg Bibb over at the Pass the Ball Blog noted.

Let's suppose that you were to buy an Atlanta Dream season ticket - from the baseline top seats or mezzanine corners/baseline seats. That season ticket for the 2009 season would cost you $149.00. This is for 17 regular season home games. That comes to $8.76 per home game.

Given today's economy, where are you going to beat an $8.76 a ticket price? The movies? Hell, for the big ticket movies you almost have to sign a second mortgage. Fast food? Yes, but do you really want to spend two hours at the jungle gym?

The Atlanta Dream. To get a better bargain, you have to play point guard.

Good Chance of de Souza Returning to Atlanta

From the Women's Hoops Blog. No, not that one, the other one:

Lastly O'Neill and post Kelly Santos aren't letting the WNBA's trimming rosters fluster their hopes to play for Seattle. Both were deep bench last summer, but according to their agents, they are ready to return for training camp in May. In fact, Santos' Brazilian Olympic teammate, Erika De Sousa, plans to return for Atlanta. After last season's 4-30 finish, she hinted at not returning to the league.

I think we can expect to see Erika in a Dream uniform this year.

BWBL 13/2008 - SK Cēsis 92, Viktoria 52

SK Cēsis (11-2) is already assured of making the BWBL playoffs. They're just finishing up their schedule in Belarus right now, and they had no trouble with Belorussian team Viktoria (2-12) with an easy 92-52 win.

The box score is here.

The quarter-by-quarter score makes it obvious - SK Cēsis crushed Viktoria in the first half, holding home team Viktoria to ten points in each of the first and second quarters. SK Cēsis led by 53-20 at halftime, and in the second half, they didn't have to try as hard.

Viktoria hit 35 percent of its attempted field goals, compared to 52 percent for SK Cēsis. SK Cēsis absolutely destroyed Viktoria in rebounding by a factor of 50-30, earning 16 offensive rebounds to Viktoria's three. It helped, because Viktoria got 11 steals and SK Cēsis turned the ball over 22 times. SK Cēsis earned 19 trips to the free throw line and hit 15 shots.

Viktoria

Nadzeya Bohdan: 12 points, 6 rebounds.
Aliaksandra Zybrytskaya: 10 points, 3 rebounds.

SK Cēsis

Tamera Young: 23 points, 9 rebounds. I was wrong in my earlier post, she didn't have any turnovers.
Rima Margevičiute: 12 points
Santa Dreimane: 12 points
Kristen Mann: 9 points and 5 rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

Hopefully, pictures soon.

P. S.: Updated now that the box score is working.

What If...No Candace Parker in 2008?

One more time!

A friend of mine on a blog - I can't say which - decried the existence of "what if" scenarios. Therefore, I'll try to answer a big what if that gets Tennessee fans a buzzing:

What if Candace Parker decided to remain in Tennessee for her fourth year of eligibilty and skipped the 2008 WNBA Draft?

Let's make this easy and say that Candace Parker changed her mind after she got drafted by the Sparks - that way we don't have to change the rest of the draft.

1. Candace probably would have helped Tennessee a lot. Maybe somewhere between four to six wins worth of help. This of course depends on the value of the player she'd be displacing. A 20-9 team becomes a 24-5 team or a 26-3 team, and Tennessee goes back into the AP Top Ten.

2. Without Candace, Los Angeles sinks by approximately four wins, using the value of win shares determined by basketball-reference.com. But who gets the four wins that the Sparks lose? I gave them to:

a) Detroit, a team that LA only beat by 3 points in one matchup
b) Chicago, a team that LA only beat by 4 points
c) Connecticut, a team that lost to LA in overtime by 5 points, and
d) San Antonio, where LA beat the Silver Stars by 5 despite shooting only 34 percent.

Here are the new 2008 WNBA Final Standings in a universe without Candace Parker:

East

Detroit 23-11
Connecticut 23-11
New York 19-15
Indiana 17-17
Chicago 13-21
Washington 10-24
Atlanta 4-30

West

San Antonio 25-9
Seattle 22-12
Sacramento Monarchs 18-16
Houston Comets 17-17
Los Angeles 16-18 (4-3, 2-2 vs. Phoenix, better conference record)
Phoenix Mercury 16-18 (4-3, 2-2 vs. Los Angeles, worse conference record)
Minnesota Lynx 16-18 (2-4)

3. Nothing changes in the East. Detroit goes on to win the East, and most likely, win the title.

4. In the West, Sacramento moves up into the #3 spot and the Houston Comets move up to the #4 spot. This sets up Seattle-Sacramento (which Seattle would probably win) and San Antonio-Houston. San Antonio and Houston hate each other as teams. If somehow, Houston ends up defeating the Silver Stars in the first round, it makes it that much tougher to contract Houston. Despite the financial burden, in that outcome Houston might survive yet another year.

5. Whoever replaces Candace Parker on the Los Angeles roster doesn't rise to Plenette Pierson's bait. "The Brawl" never takes place.

6. Likewise, Candace Parker's dunks are removed. Lisa Leslie remains the only woman to dunk in a WNBA game.

7. Finishing 16-18 for the year is a bit depressing. Lisa Leslie wonders if she should take an earlier retirement.

8. In the NCAA tournament, Tennessee makes it to the Regional Finals before falling. Candace Parker is projected as the #1 pick in the 2009 WNBA Draft. Atlanta, picking first, picks Angel McCoughtry for some inexplicable reason.

As a result, the Washington Mystics choose Candace Parker with their #2 pick. In her first few games for Washington, she dunks. Barack Obama takes his daughters to see Candace Parker play for the Mystics, and a new era begins.

9. Lisa Leslie is talked out of retirement. She thinks she'll get along fine with the Sparks first-round draft pick, a girl named Courtney Paris....

Career Blocked Shot Leaders

Margo couldn't leap very high, but she never needed to.

The amazing thing about the WNBA career blocked shot records (to me at least) is how quickly the number of blocks drops as you move down the list. The top career shot-blocker has almost 900 career blocked shots, but the #10 career shot-blocker is actually under 300 blocked shots.

Height also doesn't guarantee one a place on the blocked shots career list. I have a list of 22 WNBA players who were (at least at one time) listed as 6'6" or taller. How many of those players are on the Top 10 career list of shot-blockers? Just one. As for the others, the 6'8" Maria Stepanova comes the closest at #19.

One of the players on the blocked-shot list below is only 6'2". There are a lot of things that come into play to be a leader in blocked shots. Tenacity, quickness, longevity, for example. Height is simply one of many factors, but as it turns out, the tallest woman ever to play in the WNBA is also its career blocked shots leader.

Most Blocked Shots, Career

1. Margo Dydek, 877
2. Lisa Leslie, 789
3. Lauren Jackson, 485
4. Tangela Smith, 452
5. Ruth Riley, 393
6. Tammy Sutton-Brown, 392
7. Taj McWilliams-Franklin, 327
8. Yolanda Griffith, 321
9. Elena Baranova, 320
10. Vicky Bullett, 288

- italic type denotes inactive player

What if the "Mid-Majors" Existed?

Basketball loves to talk about the "Mid-Majors". There generally seems to be some agreement about the major conferences, which are the:

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
Big East
Big Ten
Big Twelve
Pacific Ten (Pac-10)
Southeastern (SEC)

However, there really isn't much consensus about what makes a mid-major team. These conferences aren't as prestigious as the major conferences, but do carry some weight when it comes to making decisions as to which at-large teams to go the NCAA post-season tournament. All kinds of factors go into each individual's perception of which conferences are "mid-major" and which aren't. According to the Wikipedia article, some conferences have their supporters and their detractors. The example given in the article is the Missouri Valley Conference, which includes Illinois State, Drake, and Wichita State? Is it mid-major, or "low-major".

I thought it would interesting to create a "Top 25" ranking for only the mid-major conferences. The article linked above gives a brief semi-consensus list of these conferences:

Atlantic Ten (A-10)
Colonial Athletic Association (CAA)
Conference USA (CUSA)
Horizon League
Mid-American Conference (MAC)
Missouri Valley Conference (MVC)
Mountain West Conference (MWC)
West Coast Conference (WCC)
Western Athletic Conference (WAC)

My Top 25 of "Mid-Major" conferences includes only the teams from these conferences. And of course, once you've identified a mid-major you have to identify all the other conferences as "low majors" and give them their own Top 25.

So here we go! Relative position determined by Real Time RPI as of March 3, 2009:


Mid-Major Top 25

1. Virginia Commonwealth
2. Temple
3. San Diego State
4. Bowling Green
5. TCU
6. Illinois State
7. Gonzaga
8. Richmond
9. Wisconsin-Green Bay
10. Ball State
11. Charlotte
12. St. Bonaventure
13. James Madison
14. Utah
15. New Mexico
16. George Washington
17. Bradley
18. Drexel
19. Brigham Young
20. Creighton
21. Southern Methodist
22. Duquesne
23. Dayton
24. Drake
25. Old Domininon

Low-Major Top 25

1. Middle Tennessee St.
2. South Dakota St.
3. Marist
4. Hartford
5. Florida Gulf Coast
6. Montana
7. Arkansas-Little Rock
8. Oakland
9. Liberty
10. Lehigh
11. Bradley
12. Boston
13. Sacred Heart
14. UC-Riverside
15. East Tennessee State
16. Texas-Arlington
17. Western Kentucky
18. Chattanooga
19. Samford
20. Portland State
21. UCSB
22. North Carolina A & T
23. Canisius
24. Charleston
25. South Alabama

Robbery, Plain and Simple

She can turn her back on you, but not vice-versa.

It isn't suprising that the career steals leaders in the WNBA would be those players that are still active - cumulative stats work like that in a league with such a short history. Players in italics are those players that were inactive as of the 2008 season.

Most Career Steals

1. Ticha Penicheiro, 655
2. Sheryl Swoopes, 632
3. Tamika Catchings, 532
4. Yolanda Griffith, 529
5. Nykesha Sales, 490
6. Lisa Leslie, 476
7. Shannon Johnson, 467
8. Teresa Weatherspoon, 465
9. DeLisha Milton-Jones, 440
10. Sheri Sam, 438

Israel Women's D1 18/2008 - Maccabi Ashdod 102, Maccabi Ramat Hen 89

Supposedly, yesterday was the final day of the Israel Women's D1 Regular season.

Six teams go to the playoffs. The playoffs start March 5th with a post-season round robin. I don't know if the round robin is used to determine which teams are the finalists, or if the round robin is used by itself to determine a champion.

The upcoming round-robin games for Maccabi Ramat Hen this week:

Thursday: Home vs. Maccabi Ashdod
Sunday: Away vs. Electra Ramat Hasharon

I don't have a boxscore for Maccabil Ashdod's 102-89 win over Maccabi Ramat Hen, but here are a few facts about it:

1) The win knocked Maccabi Ramat Hen to 14-4, into a tie for second place. Agh. Here are the final standings of the top six teams:

Electra Ramat Hasharon 15-3
Maccabi Ramat Hen 14-4
Raanana Hertzeliya 14-4
Elizur Ramla 13-5
Maccabi Ashdod 11-7
Elizur Holon 9-9

2) Ramat Hen lost LaToya Pringle to some sort of knee injury. We don't know how serious the injury is yet.

3) From the website, here are the highlights:

Maccabi Ashdod

Tasha Humphrey: 34 points. Humphrey is a center for the Washington Mystics.
Natasha Lacy: 23 points and 14 assists. Lacy graduated from UTEP in 2008.
Sherill Baker: 19 points. Baker is a guard for the Indiana Fever.
Jennifer Fleischer: One point for the University of Pennsylvania graduate.

Maccabi Ramat Hen

Ivory Latta: 22 points
Shay Doron: 16 points
Tamara James: 16 points
LaToya Pringle: 4 points

If I find any pictures or anything, I'll post them.

Happy Birthday Erika!

Erika wishes she were holding a birthday cake....

Today is the 27th birthday of Erika de Souza. We could send her a card, of course, but she's pretty busy during the season. The fans of the Atlanta Dream wish Erika the best!

Groundhog Doesn't See Shadow; Early Spring Predicted

You know the WNBA season will soon be upon us when Debbie Schlussel slurs the WNBA in one of her articles, which just happened today. I expect Bill Simmons to write his annual anti-WNBA screed, and by that time, we should be past Draft Day.

These things are as predictable as flowers blooming in spring. Good times, good times.

Did Holdsclaw Help Her Teams...or Hurt Them?

Since someone stated at that Holdsclaw's injuries hindered her teams, I decided to take a look at Holdsclaw's injury history.

The line of figures following the team name are
- games played
- games started
- percentage of regular season games played

Chamique Holdsclaw 1999 WAS 31 30 96.9
Chamique Holdsclaw 2000 WAS 32 32 100.0
Chamique Holdsclaw 2001 WAS 29 29 90.6
Chamique Holdsclaw 2002 WAS 20 20 62.5 ** grandmother dies, missed two games, severe ankle sprain injury - missed nine games**
Chamique Holdsclaw 2003 WAS 27 27 79.4 ** hamstring injury, missed six games **
Chamique Holdsclaw 2004 WAS 23 22 67.6 ** depression issues **
Chamique Holdsclaw 2005 LAS 33 33 97.0
Chamique Holdsclaw 2006 LAS 25 0 73.5 ** left plantar fasciitis **
Chamique Holdsclaw 2007 LAS 5 5 ** first (?) retirement **

All in all, Holdsclaw has missed about 25 games to injury and approximately 9-11 games due to depression issues. That's almost an entire season.

Now, let's look at how well her teams did.

1999 Mystics 12-20
2000 Mystics 14-18, made playoffs, lost first round 0-2
2001 Mystics 10-22
2002 Mystics 17-15, made playoffs, won first round 2-0, lost conference finals 1-2
2003 Mystics 9-25
2004 Mystics 17-17, won five of last six to make playoffs, lost first round 1-2
2005 Sparks 17-17, made playoffs, lost first round 0-2
2006 Sparks 25-9, made playoffs, won first round 2-1, lost conference finals 0-2

And now, let's look at the best player on all of Holdsclaw's teams by Win Shares, which come from basketball-reference.com:

1999: Murriel Page (Holdsclaw second)
2000: Holdsclaw
2001: Vicki Bullett (Holdsclaw second)
2002: Holdsclaw
2003: Holdsclaw (in Top 10 in Win Shares)
2004: Alana Beard (Holdsclaw second)
2005: Holdsclaw (in Top 10 in Win Shares)
2006: Lisa Leslie (Holdsclaw second)

I think it's hard to make the argument that somehow Holdsclaw failed to hold up her end of the bargain and that her teammates had to do all of the lifting for her. Four conclusions:

1) Holdsclaw played on some very bad teams in her career. In some cases, no one could have made those teams better. She only played on two teams with a record above .500. During her time with the Mystics, the Mystics were never very good. (They still aren't good.) That's not the fault of Holdsclaw, that's the fault of Mystics management.

2) Even when she played with the Sparks, they weren't a transcendent team. The first Sparks team she played on was mediocre, and the second case was just a case of bad luck.

3) Most of the time, Holdsclaw was the best player on her teams. In her earlier career, she misses the mark just barely, and look who she's playing with - Murriel Page and Vicki Bullett. When Alana Beard beat her out for best player, it took Beard all 34 games to earn more Win Shares than Holdsclaw did, and she barely finishes ahead of her.

In 2005, Holdsclaw actually outperformed Leslie. In 2006, Leslie had a fantastic season, finishing fifth win Win Shares across the league.

I found this interesting excerpt from an ESPN article in 2004, discussing an altercation between Holdsclaw and a Mystics fan:

One Mystics fan confronted her in public about her absence, she said.

A passing motorist rolled down his window and began berating her, telling her, "You need to get it together! You need to get back on the court!"

Holdsclaw responded angrily.

"Do you know me?" she shouted "You don't know me!"

My suspicion is that:

4) Mystics fans simply had expectations that were ridiculously high, that Holdsclaw was just going to be able to put the team on her back and lead it to a championship every year. Even Michael Jordan was unable to do that, until he got a supporting cast and a good offensive scheme that he was willing to buy into. Holdsclaw, however, never had that opportunity.

Someone had to be blamed for the Mystics mediocrity, and the finger could be easily pointed at Holdsclaw. "It was that crazy, fucked-up Holdsclaw that caused the Mystics to be so awful. It's all her fault!"

In 2006, the Sparks lost the conference finals. Now, the Sparks could blame Holdsclaw and a consensus could be formed - "Holdsclaw causes your team to lose - it was clearly Claw's abandonment of the team that hurt the Sparks." Of course, if the Sparks had beaten the Monarchs and then beaten the Shock, you would have heard the argument, "See? We won the finals. It just proves that Claw isn't all that and we won because we were lucky and got rid of the weakest link." Once a consensus is formed, you can't win for losing.

So to Atlanta Dream fans, a cautionary tale - let's not put it all on Holdsclaw's back. This is a very young team, and if we don't make the playoffs, it will most likely not be Holdsclaw's fault. A team is not just one person, no matter how good she is.

Furthermore, depression is a weird disease, a disease for which it's easy to blame the victim. It still carries a social stigma, and for athletes, all the more so. Once again, I hope that Holdsclaw comes back and proves her naysayers wrong. As they said at the end of that awful movie with Robin Williams playing a football player, "Half of the people here today came to see you succeed. The other half came to see you fail."

I suspect that WNBA fans are similarly split, with half hoping that Holdsclaw will fail in order to confirm their own biases. But the other half hopes that she will prove her naysayers wrong.

Best Assist/Turnover Ratios

Call her "The Pest", but call her fantastic as well.

One of the old fashioned metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of a player - usually a point guard - is that of the "assist/turnover ratio". The idea is that anyone with a high assist/turnover ratio is very good at finding the right person to pass to. The "assist" part means that the person she passes to scores, and the "turnover" part means that she doesn't make a bad pass that ends up in the hands of the defense.

Here are the best assist/turnover ratios in WNBA history. Bold type indicated an active player.

Assist/Turnover Ratio - Career Leaders
(minimum 150 assists)

1. Debbie Black, 612/233, 2.627
2. Ticha Penicheiro, 2023/889, 2.276
3. Jennifer Azzi, 638/281, 2.270
4. Niele Ivey, 228/102, 2.235
5. Teresa Weatherspoon, 1338/603, 2.219
6. Dawn Staley, 1337/643, 2.079
7. Lindsey Whalen, 808/395, 2.046
8. Ukari Figgs, 472/232, 2.034
9. Noelle Quinn, 229/113, 2.027
10. Jennifer Derevjanik, 173/87, 1.989

Note that Nikki Teasley is #11 on this list with a 1.985 ratio.

This Week's Schedule

Here is the schedule of games for this week overseas that involve Atlanta Dream players. The Israel Women's D1 league plays their final game of the regular season, but I don't know when the postseason is scheduled. There are no games scheduled in Greece this week.

The Queen's Cup Tournament - a single-elimination eight-team tournament - takes place in Spain this week, pre-empting regular season games.

Monday

Israel Women's D1: Maccabi Ashdod (10-7) vs. Maccabi Ramat Hen (14-3)

Thursday

BWBL: Olimipa (Belarus) (3-11) vs. SK Cēsis (10-2) *

Friday

BWBL: Victoria (Belarus) (2-11) vs. SK Cēsis (10-2) *
LFB (Spain): Queen's Cup Quarterfinals: Ros Casares vs. San José
LFB (Spain): Queen's Cup Quarterfinals: Perfumerias vs. Ibiza

Saturday

LFB (Spain): Queen's Cup Semifinals

Sunday

LFB (Spain): Queen's Cup Finals
LSBL: SK Cēsis (21-2) vs. Liepajas (12-13)

* - Eurobasket lists SK Cesis as playing Olimpia on Thursday, but the SK Cēsis website has the Victoria game listed as the Thursday game. Standings as of Monday, March 2 2009.

BWBL 12/2008 - SK Cēsis 78, Tallinna Living 51

Tamera Young has had a heavy load to bear in Estonia.

SK Cēsis (10-2) played its 12th BWBL game, the second game of a back-to-back game tour in lovely Estonia. Tallinna Living (3-11) would become the whipping girls after the SK Cēsis loss yesterday to BC Star - TLU. It would be Tallinna Living's misfortune to take the 78-51 loss as a gift from their Latvian visitors.

The box score is here. (Click on "View match statistics" to see the boxscore.) A gallery of game images can be found here.

SK Cēsis led after the first quarter 26-14, but then fell apart in the second quarter. They scored only four points in the second quarter, but hung on to 30-29 lead at halftime. After some halftime...uh...encouragement...SK Cēsis held Tallinna Living to just nine points in the third quarter and outscored them 26-13 in the final quarter.

SK Cēsis hit 41 percent of their field goal attempts compared to 37 percent for Tallinna Living. Both teams had similar rebound numbers, but SK Cēsis led Tallinna Living 11-7 in offensive rebounds. Tallinna Living turned the ball over 25 times in the game, which must have been the difference. Furthermore, SK Cēsis was sent to the line 20 times compared to just three for Tallinna Living.

Tallinna Living

Kerli Haas: 12 points, 4 rebounds.
Anastassia Ptitsona: 11 points, 4 rebounds.
Katrin Olmari: 6 points, 4 rebounds...9 turnovers.

SK Cēsis

Kristen Mann: 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assist for the ex-Atlanta Dream player now with the Indiana Fever.
Ieva Tare: 12 points, 8 rebounds.
Tamera Young: 4 points. 1-for-6 shooting in only 15 minutes of play.

BWBL 11/2008 - BC Star - TLU 66, SK Cēsis 62

How come the Dream can't have cool banners like that?

Somehow, we've come up to 12 games in the Baltic Women's Basketball League for SK Cēsis. I can't get an accurate count, it seems. I know that one of the game between SK Cēsis and a Ukranian team was cancelled, so that should make this game #10. But if you go to the SK Cēsis website, it's implied that this is game #11.

As it turns out, SK Cēsis had been scheduled to play an Ukrainian team, TIM-SCUF, sometime in the past. That team failed to show up and the Baltic League finally awarded SK Cēsis a forfeit victory.

Maybe SK Cēsis should have skipped this game. Going on the road again - this time to Estonia - they are upset on the road, 66-62 yesterday in Baltic League play.

The box score is here. You just have to click on the "View match statistics" link. A gallery of images from the game is here.

SK Cēsis jumped out to a strong 20-8 lead against the home team, and took a 40-23 lead into halftime. Even after three quarters of play, SK Cēsis still led 55-42. But in the fourth quarter, it fell apart. SK Cēsis only scored seven points in the fourth quarter and BC Star - TLU scored 24 to steal the victory at home from SK Cēsis.

The club president of SK Cēsis blames the fact that they have an injured center. If so, how come they were able to hold BC Star - TLU at arm's length for three quarters without her?

Both teams were equals in field goal accuracy (BC Star - TLU 42 percent, SK Cēsis 43 percent). It was in rebounding that SK Cēsis fell shot, outrebounded 37-28 and only finding three offensive rebounds. Maybe SK Cēsis's president is right. Both teams were relatively even when it came to turnovers and free throw shooting, so it was rebounding that would make the difference.

BC Star - TLU

Davineia Payne: 26 points and 13 rebounds for the BWBL's leading scorer. Graduated from LaSalle in 2006.
Ashley Wallace: 20 points, 6 rebounds. Graduate from Division II Pace University.
Janna Rannaveski: 9 points, 7 rebounds.

SK Cēsis

Kristen Mann: 16 points, 8 rebounds for the ex-Atlanta player who now plays for Indiana.
Ieva Tare: 14 points, 5 rebounds
Santa Dremaine: 13 points, 4 rebounds
Tamera Young: An awful game: 4 points and 4 rebounds in 21 minutes played. 2-for-8 shooting.

P. S.: If you're inclined to look at the gallery pictures, prove to me that there were more than a dozen people in attendance outside the players and the staff.

Sellling the Dream

There's an interesting article about Atlanta marketing director Paige Blankenship in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The link is here.

And just remember what the Women's Hoops Blog says - if you don't click the link above, how is the AJC going to know that you're interested?

LFB 21/2008 - Ros Casares 76, Estudiantes 54

It seems like the two Brazilian members of the Atlanta Dream are ready to help each other out. With Extrugasa (led by Iziane Castro Marques) failing to move up the league table, Ros Casares (20-1) and Erika de Souza shove Estudiantes (4-17) into the 14th and final slot of the Liga Feminina with a 76-54 victory.

For Nikki Teasley, it was an ugly introduction to Liga Feminina play. Teasley played 16 minutes and didn't score a single point.

It was the 17th straight Liga Feminina regular season win for Ros Casares. Ros Casares only needs to win three of the five remaining games to clinch the first seed in the post-season playoffs, which will be a fine consolation after being knocked out of Euroleague.

The box score is here.

El Ros won every quarter. They led 42-27 at halftime, extended their lead to 61-40 after three quarters, and cruised to victory with little effort.

Ros Casares hit 48 percent of their shots compared to Estudiantes, who hit 31 percent of their free throw attempts. Estudiantes was out-rebounded 42-30, but had a 12-10 edge in offensive rebounds. Each team had a high number of turnovers - 18 and 19 respectively. Estudiantes only went to the free throw line eight times...and only hit two shots.

Ros Casares

Amaya Valdemoro: 14 points, 5 rebounds.
Candace Wiggins: 18 points in her first big game for Ros Casares.
Anna Montanana: 9 points, 8 rebounds.
Erika de Souza: 8 points, 3 rebounds. 6-for-9 shooting.
Delisha Milton-Jones: 8 points, 4 rebounds.

Estudiantes

Elin Eldebrink: 18 points, but 7 turnovers.
Brooke Wyckoff: 10 points, 6 rebounds.
Nikki Teasley: 0 points in 16 minutes. One rebound. Two turnovers, and four fouls. 0-for-5 shooting.

Breaking News - Nikki Teasley to Estudiantes in Spain

Nikki in her new duds.

With Estudiantes looking at a possible relegation, they have taken a page out of Extrugasa's book. Extrugasa hired Iziane Castro Marques to keep them out of the bottom of the league, and now Estudiantes has hired Nikki Teasley to give them such much needed wins with six games left.

The translated article is here. This happened on Friday, February 27th, so I was very lucky to find out about this, as Ros Casares played Estudiantes today and I saw Teasley's name in the box score.

Leah Rush, who last played for the Chicago Sky, terminated her contract with Estudiantes which made room for Teasley. I don't know how much impact Teasley can make in just six games...but it looks like we're going to find out pretty soon....

LFB (Spain) 21/2008 - Ibiza 88, Perfumerias 87 (OT)

Anke de Mondt has the ball for Perfumerias.

The bizarre part of being a professional player is that one season someone who is your most trusted teammate might be your most dangerous opponent in the following season. WNBA pro ball players have this happen at least once a year - rosters and relationships are shuffled every off-season in Europe.

In 2008, Sancho Lyttle and Michelle Snow were teammates on the Houston Comets. Next year, they'll be teammates on the Atlanta Dream. However, in the off-season, Sancho Lyttle represents Ibiza (11-10) and Michelle Snow represents Perfumerias (17-4). Perfumerias might have made it to the quarterfinals of Euroleague, but at home Ibiza treated Perfumerias to an 88-87 overtime loss in Liga Feminina play.

The box score is here.

Iziba took a 22-17 lead after the first quarter, and expanded their lead to 42-35 at halftime. But Perfumerias is one of the best teams in the Spanish League, and they scored 25 points in the third quarter to take a 70-68 lead. Down 73-66, Ibiza scored six points with slightly more than a minute remaining, and a shot by Shannon Johnson with 0.6 seconds left sent the game into overtime., and managed to score one more point than the visitors in the five minutes of overtime.

Ibiza hit 47 percent of its field goal attempts, and hit 56 percent from inside the 3-point line. Perfumerias took 73 shots and only hit 44 percent. Perfumerias had the edge in rebounding, holding Ibiza to just five offensive rebounds. Both teams did a great job in maintaining possession of the ball, each side only having 11 turnovers.

Perfumerias would only hit 54 percent of its free throws. They only scored two free throws less than Ibiza, but that turned out to be the difference.

Ibiza

Sancho Lyttle: 28 points, 14 rebounds. She was clearly the player of the game.
Silvia Morales Martin: 25 points, 7 rebounds, 4 turnovers.
Shannon Johnson: 21 points, 5 assists, fouled out.

Perfumerias

Michelle Snow: 20 points, 13 rebounds. She was 9-for-17. Fouled out.
Gunta Basko: 15 points, 6 rebounds.
Petra Stampalija: 17 points, 12 rebounds. The third of three double-doubles in the game.

Next week, these teams will meet again during the Copa de la Reina - the "Queen's Cup" - in a quarterfinals game. Ros Casares will also be playing in the Copa.

LFB (Spain) 21/2008 - Olesa 79, Extrugasa 61

The hope of crawling away from those final two spots in the Liga Feminina just got that much tougher. Extrugasa (5-16) was forced to go on the road against tough Olesa (12-9), and as expected they fell 79-61. With five games left in the season, the #11, #12 and #13 teams are tied at 5-16. There are 14 teams, and if I'm right, the last two get relegated.

The box score is here.

Olesa had this game well in hand, beating Extrugasa in every quarter played. Olesa led 40-34 at halftime and held Extrugasa to just 11 third quarter points.

Olesa was simply the better shooting team, hitting 46 percent of their field goal attempts compared to 36 percent from Extrugasa. Olesa had the advantage in overall rebounds and picked up 12 rebounds to Extrugasa's eight. Extrugasa had its typical 65 percent free throw shooting game, whereas Olesa hit 83 percent of their free throws.

Olesa

Thyra Liljestrand: 19 points, 2 rebounds.
Tracy Reid: 13 points, 7 rebounds for the ex-WNBA Rookie of the Year. Kelly is a forward for the Sacramento Monarchs.
Cristal Kelly: 6 points, 7 rebounds.

Extrugasa

Iziane Castro Marques: 26 points, 9 rebounds. A good day for Izi.
Katia da Silva: 9 points, 9 rebounds.

Greek Women's A1 21/2008 - Paleo Faliro 52, Apollon Ptolemaidas 51

Man, this game looks good. Paleo Faliro (13-8), playing a rare Saturday game, defeats visting Apollon Ptolemaidos (10-11) by a score of 52-51. But the sad part about it is that finding any information about this game through the Greek media is virtually impossible.

The box score is here.

Looking at the quarter-by-quarter score, you know that this game must have been tight. 12-12 after the first quarter. 27-26 in favor of Paleo Faliro at haltime. 40-39 in favor of Paleo Faliro in the third quarter, and both teams score 12 points in the fourth as Paleo Faliro escapes with the win.

Unfortunately, what wasn't tight about the game was any sort of shooting accuracy. Both teams were throwing up bricks, or as they say at Rebkell, there was a lot of 'chucking' going on. Paleo Faliro shot 29 percent from the field - and won. That's because Apollon Ptolemaidas only hit 32 percent of their attempted free throws.

Apollon Ptolemaidas won the battle of rebounding 42-35. However, they turned the ball over 23 times, negating the "advantage" of shooting 31 percent. Apollon Ptolemaidas was slightly better at the free throw line, but two extra free throws wasn't enough.

Paleo Faliro

Fotoula Volonaki : 10 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists. If she hadn't only played 18 minutes....
Kristin Haynie: 22 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals. 8-for-11 shooting.
Karen Mourd: Only 5 points on 3-for-11 shooting.
Teana Miller: Only 3 points on 2-for-8 shooting, but 8 rebounds.

Apollon Ptolemaidas

Chloe Kerr: The graduate from Southern California 18 points and 11 rebounds on 12-for-21 shooting.
Starvoul Spanidou: 12 points, 11 rebounds.
Crystal Smith: 3 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 turnovers for the Washington Mystics guard.

WNBA Windex (TM) Women

Gee, I can't figure out why the Fever wants her.

If you're unfamiliar with Windex, it's a liquid used to clean glass. Another way to clean the glass is to get an offensive rebound. Dick Vitale created the famous All-Windex Team, honoring the best offensive rebounders of college basketball, and the expression stuck.

So who is the best in the WNBA at getting the offensive board? There are two ways to look at the problem: persistence and effectiveness, as well as a combined metric that looks at total offensive rebounds multiplied by offensive rebound percentage - rewarding players for both.

All names in bold font are active players.

Most Offensive Rebounds, Career

1. Yolanda Griffith, 1045
2. Lisa Leslie, 826
3. Taj McWilliams-Franklin, 794
4. Chasity Melvin, 741
5. Natalie Williams, 733
6. Tina Thompson, 662
7. Cheryl Ford, 568
8. Murriel Page, 566
9. Tangela Smith, 560
10. Lauren Jackson, 554


Highest Percentage of Offensive Rebounds as Total Rebounds
(min 100 Total Rebounds for career)

1. Tonya Washington, 64/116, 55.2 percent
2. Wanda Guyton, 84/162, 51.9 percent
3. LaToya Pringle, 52/102, 51.0 percent
4. Laura Harper, 68/137, 49.6 percent
5. Kisha Ford, 106/218, 48.6 percent
6. Danielle McCulley, 52/107, 48.6 percent
7. Shay Murphy, 63/130, 48.5 percent
8. Jessie Hicks, 174/361, 48.2 percent
9. Bridgette Gordon, 78/165, 47.3 percent
10. Andrea Gardner, 52/111, 46.8 percent

Among the top ten rebounders of all time, Yolanda Griffith has the highest percentage with 42.9 percent.

Career Leaders in Offensive Rebounds x Offensive Rebound Percentage

1. Yolanda Griffith, 448.10
2. Chasity Melvin, 304.88
3. Natalie Williams, 293.28
4. Taj McWilliams-Franklin, 283.72
5. Latasha Byears, 230.67
6. Lisa Leslie, 216.18
7. Adrienne Goodson, 215.85
8. Tamika Raymond, 207.00
9. Murriel Page, 199.85
10. Tina Thompson, 198.21

Chamique Holdsclaw Leaves Club in Poland

Chamique Holdsclaw and the Polish club Wisla Can Pack have decided to mutually terminate the contract Holdsclaw has with the team.

From a translated article:

"At present, Chamique is not capable of training, and thus also to the game. . The decision to terminate the contract was made jointly with koszykarką - Vice President informed the TS Wisla INTERIA.PL, Piotr Dunin-Suligostowski."

Wisla Can Pack is somewhat screwed, because the deadline has passed for Wisla to acquire another player to replace her. From what I can glean, Holdsclaw had a knee operation recently and when she returned to Wisla Can Pack, supposedly she was a shadow of her former self. (Although a Polish message board poster pointed out that her stats were rather good. She's going to return to the USA to undergo treatment.

The article surmises that this throws Holdsclaw's potential return to Atlanta in jeopardy. Everything now depends on how well Holdsclaw's rehabilitation turns out.

One poster on a Polish basketball message board wrote:

"The situation repeats itself ... look what happened, and Chamique has signed for the entire season in Gdynia .... abandonment of the WNBA... Now - a desire to return and the same thing ... super... super ..."

I guess whenever Chamique walks away from a bad situation, people are going to conclude the worst about her. I guess with her past, those will always be the breaks.

Dunking Trivia

Who was the first woman to dunk:

a) in a high school game?
b) in college?
c) in the WNBA?

Spawn of MZone has the answers for you.

By the way...I wonder if anyone ever dunked in the ABL....

Atlanta Dream: Class A Basketball At Its Best

From the article at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution called "Take 10: State basketball tournament games we'd like to see", a interesting matchup is proposed by writer Glen LaFollette:



5: Wesleyan vs. Atlanta Dream (Class A girls) — Well, sure it’s a long shot. But we’d like to see someone challenge Jan Azar’s squad. We think the Dream would certainly be a defensive nightmare, but we have faith in Anne Marie Armstrong and Azar to bring home another title.



Heh. That's the first time anyone called us a "defensive nightmare". I'd love to see the game, but it's one of those situations where you get nothing if you win it and lose everything if you lose it. Maybe a one-quarter exhibition game? Bring them to Philips Arena for some honor? Bueller?

Hmm. If Marynell Meadors and Carol Ross don't work out, maybe we can call Jan Azar.

"Rethinking Basketball" LIVES!

Just heard from Q at the amazing Rethinking Basketball blog. It looks like after wandering in the wilderness of GAFIA (Getting Away From It All), we found him in the nearby woods of GAFMOI (Getting Away From Most of It).

But enough convoluted acronyms. He's back. With a new post. And just in time for the new season coming up.

Go to the link, and show yer love.

P. S. I re-added the link, with much happiness, to my list o' links.

Tamera, Your Game Has Been Cancelled

It looks like the game between SK Cēsis and the Ukrainian team Kozachka has been cancelled by the Ukranians. From what I can figure out from the SK Cēsis website is that Kozachka is doing so well in the Baltic League that they figure if they win their next two games, they'll go to the tournament anyway - therefore, they save money by not playing and tanking this game.

SK Cēsis and the Baltic League are left scratching their heads.

Hola a Todos from Iziane Castro Marques

The blog bug has become an epidemic. Iziane Castro Marques has posted a new blog entry at Dream Diary - The Official Atlanta Dream Blog.

Visit the link, and say hello to Iziane in English, Portugese...or whatever your native language is!

Euroleague Quarterfinals 3/2008 - Spartak 79, Ros Casares 70

Sylvia Fowles knows the outcome. Erika de Souza and Elena Tournikidou don't.

The hope of Ros Casares was that they would make it to the final four in Euroleague this year. Unfortunately, standing in their way was the two-time defending champion, the Russian superteam known as Spartak. Unlike the other quarterfinals matches this one took all three games, but Ros Casares fell by a 79-70 score, eliminating Ros Casares in the Euroleague.

The last standing Spanish team in Euroleague is Ros Casares's rival, Perfumerias, the only team to beat Ros Casares in regular league play. It must be very disheartening to fans of El Ros.

The box score is here. When clicking the link, you'll find both a gallery and a game writeup.

Spartak led 25-18 after the first quarter but Ros Casares closed the gap to just three points at halftime, 44-41 (it was 42-41 at one time). In the third quarter, Ros Casares fought back to actually take the lead 54-53 on a 3-pointer by Delisha Milton-Jones. Elisa Aguilar followed with another 3-pointer, and El Ros led by four, 57-53.

Down 59-54, Diana Taurasi put on a show. She would score the next nine points of the game as Spartak turned a five-point deficit into a 63-59 lead at the end of three quarters.

For the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, Spartak did not score. Free throws by Ros Casares cut the gap to one point, but Spartak went on a 9-2 run and led 72-64 with 3:32 left in the game. A pair of free throws by Milton-Jones cut the gap to 73-69 with 1:42 to go, but Ros Casares would come no closer.

Spartak hit 45 percent of its field goal attempts, including shooting 8-for-17 in 3-point shooting. Ros Casares would only shoot 37 percent. Spartak outrebounded Ros Casares overall 37-29, although both teams were even in offensive rebounding. Amazingly, Spartak turned the ball over 24 times but managed to win. Both teams performed more or less evenly well at the free throw line.

Spartak

Diana Taurasi: 22 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists. Undoubtedly, the player of the game. Taurasi is the Phoenix Mercury's franchise player.
Sylvia Fowles: 23 points, 13 rebounds, 7 turnovers. Her play sparked at least a couple of Spartak runs. "Big Syl" will return to the Chicago Sky this year.
Sue Bird: 15 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists. Ros Casares's defense had trouble with Bird and Taurasi. Bird is one of the stalwarts of the Seattle Storm.
Lauren Jackson: 12 points, 3 rebounds for this MVP free agent.
Kelly Miller: Only four minutes played. Zero points for this Minnesota Lynx guard.

Ros Casares:

Delisha Milton-Jones: 18 points, 4 assists, 5 steals.
Erika de Souza: 11 points, 8 rebounds. Only played 26 minutes, fouling out of the game.
Amaya Valdemoro: 14 points, 4 rebounds, 6 turnovers.
Jana Veselá: 4 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists.

Another Take on the 2009 Draft

Therefore I Blog guesses the first round of the 2009 WNBA Draft. The writer's picks are:

1. Dream - Angel McCoughtry
2. Mystics - Ashley Paris
3. Sky - Renee Montgomery
4. Lynx - Marissa Coleman
5. Mercury - Kristi Toliver
6. Fever - Briann January
7. Monarchs - Courtney Paris
8. Liberty - Shavonte Zellous
9. Lynx - Dewanna Bonner
10. Sun - Chante Black
11. Shock - Lyndra Littles
12. Storm - Kia Vaughn
13. Sparks - Whitney Boddie

Mascot Star: Not A Music Fan?

David Manning's Photoblog catches the Atlanta Dream's mascot Star at a Georgia-Arkansas women's basketball game at Athens, GA. It appears that Star heard a group of elementary school kids sing the National Anthem. The picture is Star's editorial comment on the process.

Of course, this pic is All Rights Reserved, David Manning. Which means that you have to visit his blog to see it. Click on the pic for the larger version.

Twenty-Five Blocked Shots

From the Brittney Griner Blog:

The newly minted Baylor signee had 21 points, 13 rebounds and 25 blocked shots as Nimitz of Houston beat Alief Hastings 69-18 last Tuesday. The 6-foot-8 Griner's 25 snuffs eclipsed the national mark of 23 by Myeisha Jones of Oakland (Calif.) Claremont against Oakland Tech in 1997. Jones went on to play at Merritt College and UNLV.

25 Blocks. How is that even possible? My suggestion is that if you want to practice for a game against Brittney Griner, just put up a plywood wall that partially obscures the basket.

More People Surprised that Brittney Griner Can Dunk

Griner vs. Parker. Coming to a court near you in 2013.

Last month, I wrote a blog post about Brittney Griner being a possible "killer app" for the WNBA - a person so interesting that even those normally not interested in the WNBA at all would tune in just to see Griner dunk on someone.

A Yahoo Sports Blogger has just posted on Brittney's dunking acumen. Of course, he starts out by being dismissive of the earlier dunks by Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker. This is no surprise to anyone that really follows women's basketball and how those that...well...don't like women that much (there's no polite way to say it) would simply "move the benchmarks" whenever women accomplished something.

Anyone who has followed the-history-of-women-succeeding-in-anything knows all about "moving the benchmarks". The first argument is that women can't accomplish "A", and if a woman ever does accomplish "A", the haters either redefine what "A" means or say that it isn't enough to accomplish "A", one must accomplish "B" and "C", too. The first knock on the WNBA was "women can't dunk" and then after Leslie and Parker put that to the lie, the knock was "women can't dunk with authority". (Definition of "with authority" an elastic concept.)

And now, Griner comes along and she dunks...well..."with authority" by pretty much anyone's definition. So when you go into the comments - if you have the intention of losing a few brain cells - the fumbling retards at Yahoo are simply left to conclude that she must be some sort of man in disguise. (Which means that the tank on the haterade just went empty - when you're opponents only have ad hominem left in their quiver of arguments, it's a sign that the fight has gone out of them and they're just left two minutes away from grunts and poo-slinging.)

Oh yeah. Griner can dunk. Definitely. Absolutely. I don't think much of dunking per se - it's just a very flamboyant way to score a pedestrian two points - but I enjoy the discomfort it seems to be bringing to some people. Yep, women's basketball is a real sport - they have uniforms and everything, ya know.

Worst at the Free Throw Line

You never call Stacey Thomas to shoot your technicals.

Let's imagine that you're a coach. You're down by two, the ball is in your hands, and there's six seconds left on the clock. You have to carry the ball all the way downcourt to score.

You know the bad guys are going to foul someone. Therefore, you want the ball in someone's hands who can make those clutch free throws in case of a foul.

And yet, there are active players in the WNBA who have mastered the art of Shaq Fu when it comes to free throw shooting. How can you hit 60 percent (or less) of your free throws and still be in basketball? Well, like Shaq, you need to compensate with some other skill - an ability to rebound, or to avoid turning over the ball, or shooting very well.

If you see any of the players below at the free throw line shooting those criticial two shots, you had better grab your Maalox if you're a coach, and a rosary if you're a fan.

(Side note: The worst shooting percentage of all time could arguably be Lenae Williams's 0-for-5 lifetime free throw shooting for the Detroit Shock in 2002.)

Worst WNBA Free Throw Shooters

(minimum 150 attempts)

1. Stacey Thomas, 112-217, 51.6 percent
2. Armintie Price, 143-276, 51.8 percent
3. Val Whiting-Raymond, 95-176, 54.0 percent
4. Tamika Raymond, 229-422, 54.3 percent
5. Sharon Manning, 103-188, 54.8 percent
6. Nakia Sanford, 337-599, 56.3 percent
7. Vanessa Hayden, 129-220, 58.6 percent
8. Tracy Reid, 189-321, 58.9 percent
9. Tiffany Jackson, 91-152, 59.9 percent
10. Cheryl Ford, 501-835, 60.0 percent

- bold face denotes player active in 2008 season

A New Pic?

This might or not be a pic of Maccabi Ramat Hen celebrating its 100-60 win over Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv. I'm a bit suspicious, as I thought Ramat Hen was playing at home, so shouldn't they be wearing white?

Then again, it might have been at Tel Aviv. According to the Israel media, only 100 people attended this game.

Waiting for Israel

I have the result of the Maccabi Ramat Hen-Bnei Yehuda game today - 100-60 in favor of Maccabi Ramat Hen, which is Ivory Latta's team. Unfortunately, there are no statistics up at the www.safsal.co.il site yet.

So we're all waiting....

Pictures from the SK Cēsis-Lemminkainen Game - February 22, 2009

A gallery of pictures from the SK Cēsis-Lemminkainen game has been posted at the SK Cēsis website.

The above is the only Tamera Young picture. But that doesn't give you an excuse not to visit.

Schedule

Here is this week's schedule of overseas games involving Atlanta Dream players:

Monday

Israel Women's D1: Maccabi Ramat Hen (13-3) vs. Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (4-12)

Wednesday

Euroleague Quarterfinals: Spartak (Russia) vs. Ros Casares (Game 3)
BWBL: SK Cēsis (7-1) vs. Kozachka (Ukraine) (9-2) *

Saturday:

LFB (Spain): Olesa (11-9) vs. Extrugasa (5-15)
LFB (Spain): Ibiza (10-10) vs. Perfumerias (17-3)
LFB (Spain): Ros Casares (19-1) vs. Estudiantes (4-16)
BWBL: BC Star/TLU (Estonia) (5-7) vs. SK Cēsis (7-1) *
Greek Women's A1: Paleo Faliro (12-8) vs. Apollon Ptolemaidos (10-10)

* - Standings as of February 23, 2009

LFB (Spain) 20/2008 - San José 86, Ibiza 74

Ibiza's (10-10) quest to climb out of the middle of the pack in the Liga Feminina and finish fourth or better - a fourth place finish guarantees the home field advantage in the first round - was set back today with an 86-74 road loss against San José (11-9) despite a great game by future Atlanta Dream player Sancho Lyttle.

The box score is here.

Ibiza took the lead in the first half of the game. Ibiza led after the first quarter 27-21 but by halftime San José had closed the gap to three points, 41-38. San José continued to surge forward, and by the end of the third quarter led 61-60. In the fourth quarter, San José held Ibiza to just 11 points to finish off the visitors.

San José had a slighty better shooting percentage than the visitors, at 50 percent to 47 percent. San José scored 34 rebounds, including 14 offensive rebounds.

San José

Kimberly Butler: 27 points, 4 rebounds. Butler, an Oregon State graduate, shot 12-for-20 during the game.
Eshaya Murphy: 29 points, 7 rebounds. Murphy, a member of the Washington Mystics, would have been the best player of the game if not for five turnovers.
Maria Sanchez-Aguilera: 14 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals.

Ibiza

Sancho Lyttle: 20 points, 11 rebounds for the only double-double of the game. The future member of the Atlanta Dream shot 9-for-13.
Shannon Johnson: 19 points, 3 assists, 3 steals...and 6 turnovers.
Sandra Pirsic: 14 points, 7 rebounds.

LFB (Spain) 20/2008 - Ros Casares 81, Celta 55

The real news would be if Ros Casares (19-1) didn't win a game. It's the same old story. Celta (10-10), a team at the bottom of the playoff ladder, came to Ros Casares and like the teams before it, walked out out Valencia with a loss, 81-55.

The box score is here.

Celta actually did a fine job against Ros Casares - relatively speaking - in the first thirty minutes. El Ros led by 22-19 after the first quarter, and led only 40-33 at halftime - Celta was still in it. Celta managed to close the gap to six points, 55-49 after thirty minutes. Unfortunately for Celta, they were held to just six points in the fourth quarter, and Ros Casares scored 26 fourth-quarter points to account for the difference between the teams. At one point in the fourth quarter, Celta went six minutes without scoring.

Ros Casares hit 54 percent of their attempted field goals - who knows how many of those field goals they put away in the fourth quarter - compared to just 40 percent from Celta. Ros Casares won the battle of rebounding, and Celta only scored five offensive rebounds. Ros Casares turned over the ball 16 times, compared to 22 turnovers from Celta. Ros Casares only hit 58 percent of its free throws, but it didn't have to be good at the free throw line to dominate the visiting Celta team.

Ros Casares

Elena Tornikidou: 16 points, 4 rebounds. 8-for-9 shooting.
Erika de Souza: 13 points, 7 rebounds. 6-for-9 shooting in just 10 minutes of play.
Delisha Milton-Jones: 10 points, 4 rebounds in just 21 minutes of play.
Candace Wiggins: 10 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals.

Celta

Iva Sliskovich: 12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals.
Agne Ciudariene: 14 points, 4 rebounds.
Maja Miljovic: 14 points, 3 rebounds, 4 turnovers.

BWBL 8/2008 - SK Cesīs 76, Lemminkainen 67

Lemminkainen (7-4) is a Lithuanian team, by the way. From what I understand - or from what I think I understand as Translate Google convolutes the text from Latvian into English - SK Cesīs (7-1) takes these games as seriously as the Baltic Women's League seems to. That is, SK Cesīs sees these games as good warmups for their Latvian league play. Given that, Lemminkainen is a tough Lithuanian team and SK Cesīs was happy to get the win on the road, winning 76-67.

The box score is here. (To access it, click on "View match statistics".)

It was certainly a closely contested game. Lemminkainen led 21-20 after the first quarter, but SK Cesīs pulled into a 41-36 lead at halftime. By the third quarter, Lemminkainen caught up again and the score was tied 56-56. SK Cesīs was able to hold the home team to 11 points in the final quarter and walked away with a nine-point victory.

SK Cesīs led in shooting percentage, 43 percent to 41 percent. However, Lemminkainen only attempted 49 shots compared to SK Cesīs's 68 attempts. Both teams rebounded evenly, with SK Cesīs holding a 10-7 edge in offensive rebounds. Lemminkainen turned the ball over 21 times during the game. However, the Lithuanian team hit 15 out of 20 of its free throws.

Lemminkainen

Aušra Naidėnienė: 16 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists.
Alesia Puško: 15 points, 5 rebounds.
Eglė Žygelytė: Only 4 points, and 9 turnovers.

SK Cesīs

Kristen Mann: 19 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 steals for the ex-Atlanta Dream player.
Tamera Young: 12 points and 4 assists. THey only needed her to play for 25 minutes.
Elina Babkina: 12 points, 3 rebounds.

Greek Women's A1 20/2008 - Apollon Kalamaris 70, Paleo Faliro 65

With Kastoria having folded and with Aris Holargos playing junior high basketball, it shouldn't be too hard to sneak into the Greek Women's A1 playoffs. Paleo Falrio (12-8) hoped to pick up another road win this Sunday but faltered on the road against Apollon Kalamaris (12-8). It was a disappointing 70-65 road loss.

The box score is here.

Paleo Faliro actually led 24-17 after one quarter and kept a five point lead going into halftime, 43-38. Unfortunately, the second half would tell a different story. Apollon Kalamaris caught up with Paleo Faliro in the third quarter and led 56-52 with ten minutes to go. All we know is that Paleo Faliro would go down to defeat after that.

Paleo Faliro was more accurate than the home team in field goal percentage, 49 percent to 43 percent. However, Apollon Kalamaris hit 9 out out of 23 shots from long range. Paleo Faliro's rebounding was better overall, but they would turn the ball over 17 times. Apollon Kalamaris was greatly helped by hitting 11 out of 13 of their free throw opportunities.

Apollon Kalamaris

Johanna Solverson: 28 points, 7 rebounds. Solverson was a senior at Iowa during 2007-08.
Nelli Bibiri: 3 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals. All in just 21 minutes of play.
Alex Giannopoulou: 7 points in 18 minutes.

Paleo Faliro

Karen Mourd: 15 points, 10 rebounds. 7-for-11 shooting.
Teana Miller: 8 points, 12 rebounds. 5-for-7 shooting.
Kristin Haynie: 12 points, 5 assists. However, she had four turnovers.

LFB (Spain) 20/2008 - Hondarribia 78, Extrugasa 75

The winning streak couldn't last forever - Extrugasa (5-15) is still a very weak team. Faced with a challenge from visiting Hondarribia (10-10), Extrugasa was leading after the third quarter but let the game get away from them as Hondarribia came back in the fourth to lose by three points, 78-75.

Whatever the result of the Perfumerias-Estudiantes game, Extrugasa still remains one game out of last place. The goal for Extrugasa is to not end up in last place and be relegated to a lower division.

The box score is here.

Extrugasa led 25-20 after the first quarter, but Hondarribia fought back and tied it up 37-37 going into halftime. In the third quarter, Extrugasa pulled back ahead 56-52, but playing well for three quarters doesn't guarantee a win.

Did Hondarribia win at the buzzer? I don't know. I can't find a good writeup of the game, and I can't find any pictures yet.

Extrugasa hit 51 percent of its field goal attempts...but Hondarribia hit 57 percent of theirs. Hondarribia was outrebounded 32-21, but Extruga

Extrugasa

Katia Da Silva: 17 points, 6 rebounds. She would draw six fouls from Hondarribia.
Elisha Turek: 12 points, 9 rebounds.
Iziane Castro Marques: 23 points, 3 rebounds. She had five turnovers, but she drew five fouls.
Taru Tuukkanen: The veteran of Extrugasa had 12 points and 7 rebounds.

Hondarribia

Henen Santos Luz: 13 points, 2 rebounds. Turned the ball over four times.
Stacey Lovelace-Tolbert: 18 points, 3 rebounds. Lovelace-Tolbert played for both the Atlanta Dream and the Detroit Shock last year.
Katja Bavendam: 10 points, 7 rebounds.

LSBL 23/2008 : SK Cesīs 102, Turība/Kolonna 53

When you're a team as dominant as SK Cesīs (21-2), road games probably don't bother you much. Visiting Turība/Kolonna (9-14) - a college team playing in the Latvian Women's League - the atmosphere was probably that of a shootaround as SK Cesīs won easily, 102-53.

The box score is here. I can find no gallery, as Turība/Kolonna have probably changed their names by now.

Obviously, SK Cesīs won every quarter. They led 57-26 at halftime, and just kept on rolling on. Turība/Kolonna was held to just seven fourth-quarter points, and SK Cesīs showed no mercy, dumping 25 points on them.

Turība/Kolonna shot 38 percent from the field...but SK Cesīs shot 57 percent, including 14-for-28 from behind the 3-point line. SK Cesīs only turned the ball over six times, compared to 22 turnovers from Turība/Kolonna. Neither side shot particularly well from the free throw line - 60 percent for Turība/Kolonna, 57 percent for SK Cesīs - but did it really matter?

Turība/Kolonna

Ieva Veinberga: 23 points and 10 rebounds for the only Turība/Kolonna double-double, shooting 5-for-13 from 3-point range.
Anete Horelika: 15 points and 5 assists for the only other Turība/Kolonna player to shoot in double-digits.
Anete Vorma: 3 points. 1-for-6 shooting. 8 turnovers. 4 personal fouls.

SK Cesīs

Kristen Mann: 19 points, 6 rebounds for one of the leading scorers in the LSBL.
Elīna Babkina: 12 points, 8 assists, 4-for-5 from 3-point range.
Santa Dreimane: 17 points, 3 assists, 5-for-5 from 3-point range.
Tamera Young: 13 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists - imagine what she would have done if she played more than 23 minutes!

Euroleague Quarterfinals 2/2008 - Ros Casares 73, Spartak 71

Hugz for Delisha and Erika! (Note Coach Rátgéber on his knees in dismay.)

With Ros Casares having lost the first game, it was do-or-die for the Spainiards. They had one home game in this best-of-three series, and their goal was to set an attendance record for this game. They made it with an amazing 6,616 spectators - the most that have ever seen a Euroleague game - and the home floor advantage was just too much for visiting Spartak as Ros Casares sealed the deal at the last second by a 73-71 score.

The box score is here. Accessing this page should bring you to the game report, play-by-play, and a nice gallery.

With the home crowd behind them, El Ros jumped out to a 27-15 first quarter lead, and led by sixteen points at halftime, 49-33. Spartak's all-star team could only close the gap by one in the third quarter, and Ros Casares looked well in control, 65-50, going into the fourth quarter.

It was then Spartak's time to shine. They started the fourth-quarter with an 11-0 run, cutting Ros Casares's lead to just four points with slightly under six minutes to go. Ros Casares was held to just eight fourth-quarter points as Lauren Jackson's jump shot tied the game at 67-67 with 2:52 to go.

With the game still tied at 69-69 with 2:07 left, Kelly Miller of Spartak fouled Amaya Valdemoro with 1:22 left. Valdemoro hit both of her free throws, and when Valdemoro blocked a Diana Taurasi jump shot, El Ros was able to get the ball back into Valdeomoro's hands for a jump shot to bring the lead to 73-69.

With 32 seconds left, Laia Palau fouled Diana Taurasi, who made both of her free throws. With just six seconds left, Valdemoro missed a jump shot putting the ball into Sue Bird's hands with the score 73-71. But Bird turned the ball over at the last second when Laia Palau stole the ball, and Ros Casares kept their amazing two point win to stay alive in Euroleague.

Both teams shot under 40 percent - Spartak shot 39 percent from the field, and Ros Casares shot 37 percent. Ros Casares had a slight edge in offensive rebounding, and Spartak had a slight edge in overall rebounding. It was Spartak's 21 turnovers that kept Ros Casares in the game, and in a physical game by both teams, Ros Casares would make 18 of 22 shots at the free throw line, with Spartak making 24 of 31.

American/WNBA Players in Bold Face

Ros Casares

Delisha Milton-Jones: 16 points, 8 rebounds. Five personal fouls, though.
Amaya Valdemoro: 21 points, and 9-10 from the free throw line.
Erika de Souza: 11 points and 6 rebounds for the forward/center from the Atlanta Dream.
Candace Wiggins: 3 points, 2 rebounds in 10 minutes of play.

Spartak

Diana Taurasi: 33 points and 4 rebounds, but 7 turnovers.
Sylvia Fowles: 14 points and 11 rebounds, the game's only double-double.
Lauren Jackson: 10 points and 7 rebounds.
Sue Bird: 8 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists.
Kelly Miller: No points, but 6 rebounds in 25 minutes of play.

(Shout out to RebKell and Kevin Pelton of StormTracker for their great articles.)

Ivory Latta Congratulates McDonald's All-American

That would be Erica Wheeler, out of Parkway Academy in Miami, Florida.

Why would "Ivy Latta" (the article misspelled her name) congratulate some high school player out of Florida, who is going to Rutgers? Simple. Latta was a McDonald's All-American, too.

BWBL 7/2008 - SK Cēsis 96, Kazakhstan NT 48

Tamara, it's really unfair of you to dunk on the Kazakhstanis.

I suppose that sooner or later, I'd end up like Daniel Boone. Boone said that he was never lost, but he admitted to being bewildered for three days.

In deciphering the Baltic Women's Basketball League, I admit I'm bewildered. I suspect that the BWBL is made up of a sort of Eastern European Euroleague, which includes countries which were former Soviet Republics.

The schedule for the BWBL looks a little haphazard. Some of these teams have played 11 or so games - others have played just a few.

I know the score of this game. The score is in the title, obviously. However, the BWBL page does not have a result. Neither does Basket LV, the website for all those Latvians out there who love basketball.

Nor does SK Cēsis. SK Cēsis is quite happy to tell us about how the game went (the writeup is here) and is glad to provide all sorts of great pictures.

The gallery is here.

Unfortunately, they don't provide what serious basketball fans want - a box score.

I know that the score at halftime was 28-12 in favor of SK Cēsis. By halftime, the score was 58-29. Kazakhstan NT was held to just 19 points in the second half. Ouch.

The roster of Kazakhstan NT must remain a mystery. Eurobasket.com is usually the ultimate source of information, but Kazakhstan NT falls under the heading of "Asiabasket.com" and there isn't even a roster there. There's a website link, but they don't have the writeup, either.

Here are some random facts:

Tamera Young: 22 points. That's all I know.
Ieva Tare: 17 points.
Kristen Mann: 16 points, 10 rebounds.

Not bad. If I ever find a box score, I'll just attach it to this post.

Delay of Game

Heavy day at work, so it might be a while before I get to write up anything. Still have to look into a game between SK Cesis (Tamera Young's team) and Kazahkstan. Furthermore, the Euroleague rematch between Ros Casares (Erika de Souza's team) and Spartak takes place today.

We might not see anything on the blog today unless there's a major trade or acquisition. Our apologies.

Chantelle Anderson of the Dream Blogs NBA All-Star Game

Chantelle Anderson, who recently signed a training camp contract with the Dream, got a chance to go to the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. She blogs about it at a new link at the Atlanta Dream Diary.

The diary entry has a link to her picture gallery, which I recommend. She's a striking woman.

By the way, the pic above is of Chantelle with a NBA player. Can you guess who it is? Hint: He had to stand on a curb. :D