SHE'S GOT GAME

“The Bay Area has been a desirable market for the WNBA and the availability of the Monarchs provides an opportunity to move a well-known franchise and broaden its fan base within Northern California,” Orender said. Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment, which runs the NHL’s San Jose Sharks and HP Pavilion — a potential WNBA venue — could be an option. The organization had not yet been contacted by the WNBA.

When the Rutgers women’s basketball team starts its first road trip of the season Sunday, the Scarlet Knights will face the same issues that confronted them at the year’s outset: consistent scoring and consistent rebounding. As expected, considering coach C. Vivian Stringer’s 10-player roster, these burdens were spread around during the opening three-game homestand. “We’re more of a team now,” sophomore guard Khadijah Rushdan said after the opening loss to No. 2 Stanford.

Auriemma has a knack for viewing the glass half-empty when it comes to Charles. Fine has never been good enough to stop the yelling and the cajoling. It is really an existential thing between the demanding coach and his senior center who hasn’t always risen to meet his demands.

Alexis Gray-Lawson and her California teammates are long overdue to face Baylor on their home court. Little did they know they would have to prepare for defending the dunk. The teams were supposed to meet at Haas Pavilion last Dec. 22, but a severe winter storm in the Northwest kept the Baylor team from getting to the Bay Area after its game at Oregon. The eighth-ranked Lady Bears (1-1) will finally come to play the No. 17 Cal Golden Bears (2-0) on Sunday. “We’ve been waiting for this game a really long time,” Gray-Lawson said. ADVERTISEMENT And now there’s an intriguing new dimension to the matchup: star Baylor freshman Brittney Griner and her attempts to dunk. “It’s great for the women’s game,” Cal coach Joanne Boyle said. “You just don’t see it that often.”

Dressed in shorts, sneakers and a long sleeve T-shirt, beads of perspiration sprouting as he scrimmages with his players the night before a game at Hartford, Louisville coach Jeff Walz doesn’t look like a guy burdened by the pressure of living up to last season’s eye-opening run to the national championship game. He doesn’t schedule like someone sucking up antacid, either, opening this season with back-to-back road games at Dayton and Hartford, two quality mid-major programs and two places where you wouldn’t find many national contenders willing to start the season after graduating cornerstones like Angel McCoughtry and Candyce Bingham.

With the first Maggie Dixon Classic at DePaul tipping off at 5:30 p.m. Friday in McGrath Arena, we take a look back at the Maggie Dixon story—-one that comes straight from the heart. Doug Bruno was getting fired up about an evening with the guys on a spring-fever kind of Friday night in May of 2000 when Blair Banwart hollered into the DePaul locker room: “Coach, there are a couple of tall girls that look like players standing at center court and they are asking to see you.” Recruits, thought Bruno, and the nationally renowned women’s basketball coach finished his shower and quickly got dressed. Little did Bruno suspect he was about to embark on a most amazing life experience as he walked out to the old Alumni Hall gym.

“The Bay Area has been a desirable market for the WNBA and the availability of the Monarchs provides an opportunity to move a well-known franchise and broaden its fan base within Northern California,” said Orender. “Maloof Sports & Entertainment, owner of the Monarchs, has deemed it essential to focus all of its resources on the Sacramento Kings at this time. We understand this decision was a difficult one for them and appreciate the vision, leadership, and support of the Maloof family over the past 10 years.

The fiery McFerrin constantly paces up and down the Memphis sideline, never taking a break to sit down. Whether it’s jawing with the referees or calling out offensive and defensive sets, she is completely immersed in the basketball game. McFerrin’s attitude rubs off on her players.

“I could have played in France or Russia, but I chose Israel because my agent told me it’s the best league to be in your first year outside the U.S.,” explains Courtney, as Ashley nods in agreement. She says she picked Ashdod over one of the traditional powerhouses because she wants to accumulate experience, but that enjoying herself is more important than making money.

When Joanne Boyle became head coach of UC Berkeley’s women’s basketball team, her program was an afterthought. Cal had gone twelve seasons without a winning record or a finish in the top half of the Pac-10 conference. During games, Haas Pavilion was another quiet place students could go to and study.

Although Tennessee and Connecticut were in the same arena Tuesday night, don’t hold your breath waiting for the women’s basketball teams to be on the same court again during the regular season. But don’t abandon hope either.

Some people become leaders through genetics. Others hone their abilities through trial and tribulation. Advertisement Both have shaped the focus of Lauren Aitch. As a fifth-year senior on Michigan State University’s women’s basketball team who graduated in the spring, Lansing native Aitch decided to extend her college career and work toward a master’s degree in public relations. She’s also been selected as a team captain, a feat her late father, Matt, also accomplished when he was a Spartan on the men’s basketball team in 1966-67. Every time Aitch walks into the Breslin Center, she thinks about what her dad taught her. And how much she misses him. And she thinks about how much she wants to follow in his footsteps.

With Jayne Appel in the middle of a lineup that opponents have to look up to, Stanford spies a national title within its reach.

Delaware women’s basketball coach Tina Martin let the phrase “triple-double” creep into her comments following her team’s season opener Tuesday night, and once it was out, she couldn’t reel it back in. But anybody who had watched the highly anticipated, unusually delayed college debut of Elena Delle Donne wouldn’t have needed prodding to envision such feats in the future. “If Coach says it, then yes, I can, definitely. Whatever I can do to contribute to the team the best I can to my ability, I’ll try it,” said Delle Donne, the redshirt freshman who, on her way back to her favorite sport, had once been the best high school player in the country, then one of its best-known victims of intense homesickness. “We’ll see what the future holds,” she added.

She was back playing the sport she was meant to play. Elena Delle Donne admitted that later, and also admitted she was nervous just before her long-awaited collegiate hoops debut for Delaware. During the national anthem, as all other players stood motionless, the former national high school player of the year kept bending her knees, ready to spring.