Taurasi is Cleared!

ESPN reports that Diana Taurasi's suspension is lifted! The doping charges have been dropped and she can play in the 2012 Olympics. And, oh, the Turkish team that dropped her contract like a hot potato after the already suspect Turkish lab came up with the positive test result says all is forgiven and she can come back and play and win them a championship. Diana said no thanks.

Funny, Taurasi was just saying at the end of the WNBA season last summer she needed some time off from basketball. She had been playing basketball year round going from WNBA to overseas and now USA basketball was filling any free time she did have and it was getting to be too much. Careful what you wish for.
C and R are glad she was cleared and back in the USA, and can play for the USA!

Basketball Things of Note

Coupla basketball things happened this weekend we wanted to note, sorry it took C and R awhile to get around to it, it was mostly because C was sore for two days after going to a friend’s birthday party at the Sky High Trampoline place (Ever play dodge ball on a trampoline? It’s harder than it sounds).

So thing number one, Notre Dame almost, almost beat UConn! The score was 79-76. Ever since that Stanford loss (hee hee), UConn has lost that air of invincibility and teams now believe they can beat UConn. Last year, UConn had so many weapons that could score that most teams went in mentally with a defeatist attitude and the game was decided before it was played. Now teams are requesting the Stanford-UConn tape and going over it with a fine tooth comb.

Thing number two is sadder. Diana Taurasi’s second sample was tested and confirmed to have the banned stimulant modafinil.

ESPN’s Mechelle Voepelgives a good analysis of how these things work:
-Deny taking the drug
-Wait for the B sample to be tested
-If second sample comes back positive, claim the lab is bad
-Then the Athlete denies taking anything on purpose
-Then a hearing and a penalty

However, if Taurasi is banned for more than 6 months, then she may not attend the 2012 Olympics. Bummer.

Getting back to the lab being “bad”, Taurasi and her lawyer do have a case. According to Mechelle, the "Turkish lab that tested Taurasi's samples was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for a two-month period in 2009 before being accredited again." And ESPN also reports two of Taurasi's teammates on her Turkish team Fenerbahce "have resisted doping tests in Turkey because they also do not trust the lab that tests the samples. Australian player Penny Taylor and Czech teammate Hana Horakova provided samples only after the Turkish federation agreed to send them to Germany for testing at a lab in Cologne."

Diana Taurasi’s contract has now been voided by her Turkish team.

I don't think the girl has gone more than two days without playing basketball since grade school. The irony is she was complaining just last year that she has been playing year around in the WNBA, then overseas where she gets more money and Olympic qualifying games, and that she was tired might need time off… hecka a way to do it.

Say It Ain’t So, Diana!

C and R favorite of favorites, so much that we overlook the fact she came from UConn, Diana Taurasi, has bee reported to have tested positive for a banned drug while playing basketball in the country of Turkey. Of course, all issues of privacy went out the window when the news was leaked, but like Pandora’s box, it’s out and in the news.


The first reports from her lawyer was that is it NOT a steroid. Okay, that piqued C and R’s interest enough that we dug deeper. Now it is being reported she tested positive for a stimulate, modafinil. Modafinil is used to counter excessive sleepiness due to narcolepsy, shift-work sleep disorder or sleep apnea, according to the website for the prescription drug Provigil. Man, she must have trouble staying awake over there is Turkey. To make matters worse, this very stimulate has been involved in several BALCO doping cases, most notably sprinter Kelli White. And we all know that BALCO was all about coming up with new and improved ways to HIDE steroid use. Sigh.

Taurasi has been suspended from European play and asked for her “B” sample to be tested. If the “B” sample is also positive, it could put her in jeopardy for the US National Team and Olympic lay in 2012. Augh!

Say it ain’t so.

WNBA Finals Set for Sunday

Well, the WNBA finals are set. It’s the Seattle Storm vs. The Atlanta Dream. No, that’s not a typo by C, it is the third year expansion team, the Dream, in the WNBA finals. Yes, the very same team that two years ago lost a record 30 games. And this year they were led by last year’s number one draft pick, Angel McCoughtry. She dropped 42 points on the NY Liberty to complete the sweep and sweep them into the finals.

Which team is C and R rooting for now that there are no Stanford Alums left? Well, it’s hard to root against Seattle’s trio of Lauren Jackson, Sue Bird and Swin Cash, and boy did C and R hate to see Taurasi with the Phoenix Merc go down. Wish that could have been the finals.

Anyhoo, the best of five series starts Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, on a real network channel, ABC, at 12 noon PST for you Stanford fans. C and R will be watching on C’s fancy HD TV.

Who Are You Rooting For in the WNBA Playoffs?

So C and R have been taking in the WNBA playoff games, when televised on a channel we actually get, even though we have no vested interest, meaning we have no home team to root for, thank you very much Sacramento and the Moo-oaf brothers. So the next best thing is to root for teams that have ex-Stanford women’s basketball players and after that, players we just admire.

We were delighted Jayne Appel’s team, the San Antonio Silver Stars, were in the playoffs. Unfortunately they had to play Phoenix, which is lead by Diana Taurasi, who falls under the category of players we admire. We admire the heck out of her.

Predictably, Phoenix beat San Antonio two games to none, but we did get to see Jayne Appel play, and C and R must admit, for the first time all season it finally looked as if Jayne belonged in the WNBA.

For those of you not in the know, Jayne had a stellar career at Stanford and in her senior year lead her team to the championship game, where, hampered by a painful stress fracture in her foot plus a sprained ankle, went scoreless and left college with a bad taste in her mouth. Her summer in the WNBA has not gone well either, and it is hard to tell if it is the lingering effects of her injuries or the higher level of play or a combination.

Anyway, she looked good in the loss. At one point, Jayne was being guarded by another former Stanford women’s basketball player, Brooke “The Hook” Smith. They were guarding each other so C and R took turns punching each other on the arm and saying, “Look, Brooke’s guarding Jayne, Jayne’s guarding Brooke!” We noticed both women play very similarly, but we believe Jayne is just better. Not that we have anything to back it up with, we just believe that!

Well, at least we can now root for Nicole Powell on the NY Liberty.

WNBA Playoffs

Hot enough for you Bay Area? C and R are sweating it out and it ain’t pretty. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the WNBA playoffs started. Seattle ended up with a record tying record, 28-6. But the eight teams that made the play-offs are now saying, “What you did in the regular season don’t mean jack, it’s what you do in the post season that matters.” Or something like that, don’t quote us.

Also saw our Jayne made the play-offs. Well, her team, the San Antonio Silver Stars did, and Jayne is Jayne Appel, former Stanford Women’s Basketball Star who is in her rookie season and NOT tearing it up. We were saddened to see the Stars Chamique Holdsclaw tore her Achilles at the end of the regular season. That’s gonna hurt San Antonio’s chances.

So, as we were saying before we interrupted ourselves, the San Antonio Silver Stars made the playoffs…with a 14-20 record! But it’s okay, not embarrassing, all three teams (out of four) that made the playoffs for the Western Conference had a losing record. Phoenix ended up 15-19 and Los Angeles was even worse than San Antonio at 13-21. Look, if the WNBA wants to attract more fans, we have to but out a quality product. At least in the Eastern Conference the four teams out of eight that made the play-offs had winning records. And the fifth team, UConn lite, uh, we mean the Connecticut Suns, who didn’t even make the playoffs went 17-17, a better record than three out of the four in the Western Conference playoffs! We’re just sayin’.

Oh, wait a minute, C and R’s little pea-brains just flashed on something. Jayne Appel, former Stanford player whose last college game was a devastating loss in the title game to Tina Charles’ Connecticut team, where she was playing on a broken foot and scored zero points for the first time in her college life and transitioned right away to the WNBA where she, as we said, not tearing it up her rookie year and averaging 2.5 points per game, made the playoffs with a team that was 13-21, and fellow rookie Tina Charles, who IS tearing it up as a rookie in the WNBA averaging 11.7 points and lead her team to a 176-17 record is sitting at home?!?!! (OW, R just punched me for that very long sentence.) Even C and R feel for Tina Charles. Something must be up cosmically. Wouldn’t it be great if Jayne goes into a play off game and only scores one basket, but it is the basket to win the championship? Stranger things have happened!

Anyhoo, it will be hard to stop the juggernaut that is Seattle. Superstar Lauren Jackson is supported by Sue Bird and Swin Cash, and that takes a lot of pressure off... well each other, as they don’t have to come out each night trying to score 50 million points. They can feed whoever is hot that night. Lat year’s champs, Phoenix Mercury, were similar in that they had 3 players that consistently scored in double figures. Plus they pressed the heck out of everyone. And fast breaked the heck out of everyone. Plus they had Taurasi. “nuf said.

Well, it will be interesting to see if Seattle can run the table and continue the success they had in the regular season, as what you did in the regular season… uh, see above.

Jayne in the WNBA

The following conversation took place on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 between Stanford Women’s Basketball fanatics C and R. Let’s start when C called R at her home, not on her fancy cell phone.

Ring Ring

R: Hello…

C: Hey, it’s me. What are you doing?

R: Exercising and watching Jayne not play.

C: What? You’re exercising!
(No just kidding, R walks on her treadmill most days and has the calf muscles to prove it- let’s replay from the beginning)

Ring Ring

R: Hello…

C: Hey, it’s me. What are you doing?

R: Watching Jayne not play.

C: What? Women’s Basketball is on TV?
(no, no, no…the coverage of the WNBA has gotten pretty good. The powers that be show game on ESPN or the second ESPN channel and now they are doing double headers. C and R have both noticed that the announcers are very knowledgeable and they try to broadcast the coaches talking to players at half time, which is cool. And the games themselves are pretty exciting. Let’s start again)

Ring RING

R: Hello…

C: Hey, it’s me. What are you doing?

R: Watching Jayne not play.

C: What?

R: The Antonio Silver Stars are playing the New York Liberty…

C: …With ex-Stanford Nicole Powell…

R: Yes, and former Stanford as of a few months ago Jayne Appel is riding the bench… Hey, there’s Jayne on TV

C: Is she in the game?

R: Still on the bench but the cameras love her no matter where she stands.

C: Or sits.

R: Wait, she’s going in... has the ball..

C: Did she shoot?

R: No, she’s involved in the play… looking good…. But still looks like a rookie.

C: Bummer.

R: She’s doing the Tara VanDerveer moves.

C: What is that?

R: She’s using her head, she set a pick at the top of the screen, she knows what she is doing, but everyone else can run and jump higher than her. She just boxed out well, but can’t jump for the ball.

C: Poor thing, she must still be hurting with her injuries. She could jump at Stanford. Do you feel she is contributing when she is on the floor?

R: Yes, she is contributing, maybe it won’t show up in the stat columns, but she is helping the team.

C: Well, that’s good. I hope she can heal in the off-season.

R: Closing seconds, NY Liberty and Nicole Powell won. Hey, they just said Phoenix with Diana Taurasi playing Seattle and Lauren Jackson next.

C: Cool! Love Taurisi

R: Love Taurisi (that's Ta-RA-see, with an "A")

C: How did you know how I spelled it if this is a phone conversation?

R: What?

C: What? Anyhoo, Remember when the USA National Team came to Stanford to play them and Tau-RA-si looked like a woman among girls?

R: Yes. She was amazing, so fast and powerful. Well, now that Jayne is off my screen, I need to go back to workin’ out.

C: Don’t forget we are going to see the Stanford freshmen play in the championship game in San Francisco in the Pro-Am summer league a week from this Saturday.

R: You mean August 7th?

C: Yes that weekend.

R: Oh, I won’t forget it, the championship game, best 2 out of 3. That should be fun.

C: And (to our junior bloggers) it’s free.

R: See ya there!

C: I’ll let you get back to your treadmill.

R: Only 40 more minutes left.

C: Rock on, man.

WNBA Finals

Congratulations to the Phoenix Mercury, for winning the WNBA Championship over the Indiana Fever in a best of five competition. The papers say it was the “big three”, Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter and Penny Taylor that did it, but we sooooo love Diana Taurasi. The powers that be agreed with us by voting Taurasi the Finals MVP to go along with her league MVP. Diana didn’t always have the most points, but she contributes in so many ways. She really helped her team by stepping up her rebounding and her defense.

This is Phoenix’s second championship in three years. Phoenix won it with the super-speed style that then-coach Paul Westhead used in 2007 and Corey Gaines adopted when he took over. And we love this quote:
“When I first started coaching in the WNBA coach Westhead, who is my mentor — who we owe this championship to as much as him being here right now — he told me, ‘We're going to coach the players as players, not women, ball players”' Gaines said. “And it's funny how they embraced it because they enjoyed being treated that way. Instead of being treated as women basketball players, we treat them as ball players.”

We love that many are saying this WNBA finals is the finest in the WNBA’s 13 year history. The five games were entertaining and so well played that it gave a lot of attention and respect to the WNBA.

In the deciding game five in Phoenix, Phoenix Suns captains Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash and Grant Hill purchased the tickets in the upper bowl of US Airways Center, then gave them away, leading to a sellout crowd of 17,313. We here at C and R wish they didn't have to do that, that the public will come out on their own after seeing and hearing how great these women play.

The great Mechelle Voepel reports that:
“Television ratings and attendance were up, with the last three games of the Finals being sellouts. The total attendance for the series was a record 82,018. Upper-deck seats were bought and distributed by members of the Suns organization for the contests in Phoenix, which no doubt helped. But both games in Indianapolis sold out with no freebies.”

Going from on the verge of losing the WNBA franchise, so selling out your home games in the finals is great for Indiana. We hope they are around next year for Phoenix to beat again!

WNBA Finals, Game 1

The opening game of WNBA championship game was yesterday. And it was shown on a semi-legit channel, free with your paid cable bill channel, a channel that more than 10 people get, maybe you have heard of it, it's called ESPN2.

Congrats to Diana Taurasi for wining the league's MVP Award this year before the game. She would be my first pick on any team!

Okay, we reported here how great it was that Indiana's Larry Bird, Pacers Sports and Entertainment President, bought 9,000 seats for the deciding game three of the WNBA semi-finals. Indiana went on to win that game. Someone in Phoenix must have read our article, because, Women Talk Sports reports that "Phoenix Suns general manager Steve Kerr bought the entire the upper-level of US Airways Center for game one of the 2009 WNBA Finals". He only bought 7,000 seats to Bird's 9,000.

Steve Kerr was quoted, “Both of us were part of championship teams and understand the importance of a packed house. For anyone who doubts the WNBA level of play, this is an opportunity to see for yourself. I challenge any doubters to come see the talent, skill and intensity on the court."

Okay, we know we had absolutely nothing to do with Steve Kerr getting into the act. We also love his message, if you are not a fan of Women's Basketball, come see it free. Wow, great, our hat's off to both of you...but....these guys shouldn't be spending their own money. The management should be giving away the seats, with the same message, we are so sure you will love the talent and intensity, especially during the finals, come see it for free. The building can give away the cheap seats, or charge a dollar, or somthing to encourage more fans of this greaet game.

Here's another way to fill the seats, have an exciting, well contested, highly skilled game! And, apparently, they did. The game was a marketing dream, there was a lot of scoring, the game went into over time, goats were turned into heroes (Cappie Pondexter), and everyone scored at least 20 points.

Check out this quote, "Well, if you didn't like women's basketball," Phoenix coach Corey Gaines said, "I think you do now."

Win, win, win. Except for the Indiana Fever, which actually lost to the Phoenix Mercury, 120, to 116 in over time.

Can't wait for game two.

All Stars All Entertaining

OMG….. and no, I am not practicing my texting or posting to twitter or whatever, I am flabbergasted about the WNBA’s All Star game. Man, if they played ‘em like that every night, they would fill the arenas. A record high scoring game, a dunk, old teammates hooking up, Diana Taurasi’s high socks….

It helped they played the game in the women’s basketball capital of the world, Sun Arena, in Connecticut, the heart of Uconn. Speaking of which, five former Uconn players were at the game and four played a significant part. Even UConn head coach Geno Auriemma was there.

The West’s coach put Charde Houston, Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Diana Taurasi in the line up at the same time. They were running Uconn plays! Taurasi got 18 points, Charde, in her first All Star game got 16, and Sue Bird set a record of 10 assists, beating the old record of 9 by Taurasi. She also finished with 16. Swin Cash scored 22 and got the MVP. Poor Asjha Jones. She missed the fun, playing for the East and only got 6 points, without the great supporting cast.

Last minute replacement (and former Stanford gal, at least there was one of us) almost got the high score. She was the first to get to 21 points, breaking the old record of 20, but Swin got a basket in the closing minutes to get to 22, and the MVP honors. The West would go on to win 130-118, also a record.

Sylvia Fowles was the dunkee, although she messed up the first time. The East was kind enough to give her another chance. It looked good, too.

With the All Star weekend out of the way, the teams are back to the grindstone. Candace Parker is just starting to get in playing shape down in LA. Candice Wiggins’ team, the Minnesota Lynx, has dropped to third after the great start they had. Taurasi is all business after serving her two game suspension for a DUI. Indiana is rallying behind their second year coach leads the East.

Say It Isn’t So, Diana!

Okay, I saw on other WNBA websites that Phoenix forward Diana Taurasi was pulled over for a DUI on July 2nd. I was shocked. I love Taurasi and always have thought of her as a role model.

And low and behold, my paper, the San Francisco Chronicle just put it in their paper today! On the back page, one inch of column, as usual, but 13 days late? Come on, SF!

More reports have surfaced, just not on the San Francisco Chronicle, that she was out with friends and ex-teammates (Sue Bird, Swin Cash), and that they were driving behind her. Boy, didn’t any of them have the sense to say, “D, give me your keys and let's call a taxi”?

So that got me thinking, always a dangerous thing. Should women athletes be role models? (This question is often asked of men, and Charles Barkley). Are women athletes held to a higher standard as role models (the good girl syndrome) than male athletes (boys will be boys)? Many male athletes have had DUIs, so what is the big deal?

I asked R what she thought of these questions. She said, “Drinking and partying with your friends is acceptable, and driving drunk is unacceptable, no matter who you are.” And on whether women athletes should be role models? She answered, “It might not be their choice to be a role model, but they are in the media, more than, say most business people and laypersons. Being in the media attracts fans, and sports figures, because they usually have to be in shape and healthy to play, are thought of as positive role models in their communities. So like it or not, they are role models.” Good answers.

One of the great things about joining Women Talk Sports is that I can ask other women bloggers about women athletes as role models, and they are so much smarter and articulate them me, too, and they nary make a typo.

Jane Schonberger of Pretty Tough Sports attended a panel called, The Athlete as Role Model awhile back and wrote about it. It is more scholarly than my ramblings. She wrote about how one question was answered:
“Why are athletes perceived as role models? The answers varied but several common points were raised. Athletes are held to different (albeit unrealistic) standards than actors and entertainers. While money and the media creates exposure for the athletes, they are often put on a pedestal without wanting the position.”

Ann Gaffigan, co-founder of Women Talk Sports writes:
“YES I think athletes, male and female, should strive to be good role models. I think sports serve that exact purpose to society: they inspire us by making us believe even the wildest dreams can come true. BUT, we should not expect athletes to be roles models in the sense that they are perfect beings because they are not and cannot be.”

Jayda Evans, who writes Women’s Hoops Blog for the Seattle Times, had several posts and related articles on the incident and aftermath. She reported that Diana met with the media and had the good sense to “be embarrassed”.

Well, that’s a start. Admitting her mistake and learning from it is always a stand-up kinda thing. She almost sounds like a role model.