I said that last night I grabbed a college basketball magazine off the rack only to discover that it was a year old. I also said that I intended to buy it without counting the number of pages about women's teams. I joked inwardly that it hardly mattered, because the couple of pages devoted to women surely said that there are only two teams in the whole country.

Tonight I picked up the first college basketball magazine about the 2007-08 season. Four pages about women, and guess which teams were ranked #1 and #2. Lindy's College Basketball put Stanford, Arizona State, and Cal in its Top 25 (but ASU ahead of California, which is wrong).

Lindy's included a good article about "the Gonzaga syndrome", which it cites as responsible for so many coaching changes -- that is, mid-major coaches are under great pressure to lead their team from mid-major obscurity and into Gonzaga-like prominence.

It said something that I was telling you about months ago: a good deal of Gonzaga's success is because there's nothing else going in eastern Washington. Gonzaga is like Spokane's professional sports franchise, the article said in a nice turn of phrase, while every other West Coast Conference team is in a metropolitan area.

Both Gonzaga teams won the WCC tournament last year, and the Bulldog men are expected to do it again, but I think San Diego will lead the WCC women. Gonzaga's graduation losses -- conference player of the year Stephanie Hawk plus Katy Ridenour -- are greater than San Diego's (defensive whiz Ashley Voisinet), and while the NCAA was rating the Toreros as the fourth-most improved team in the nation, they lacked the experience to pace themselves for the postseason. This season will be different.

Consider the previous paragraph your teaser for the forthcoming WCC preview.

Santa Clara University volleyball player Kim "Danger" McGiven won the West Coast Conference's scholar-athlete of the year award for maintaining a 3.92 GPA, winning three straight conference titles, and having a cool nickname that fits.

SCU basketball oughta be interesting. The Broncos lost six seniors, but their juniors were playing the best ball at the end, and they gave 2006 conference player of the year Michelle Cozad an assistant coaching position.

I sent Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer a chess book, and a suggestion that she keep me in mind to fill out a bridge foursome or perform statistics research.

Going to the University of the Pacific this weekend to watch the Tiger Classic high school tournaments. I have yet to ask for my usual seat, but who knows if I'll even bring a notebook. Yes, right, that's a joke.

Chamique Holdsclaw retired while she was averaging 24 points in wnba.com's fantasy game, and that's 24 those of us who hadn't used her yet won't get.

We got a new vice president of engineering here at Laszlo Systems, who replaces the old vice president of engineering, who was here just long enough to get rid of someone we all liked, and then disappear. Well, that was longer than Billy Donovan was at Orlando.

I don't think winless Karleen Thompson will make it to the All-Star break in Houston, but I'd rather stick with her than winless Tree Rollins, whose verbal skills are like a tree's. Jenny Boucek's honeymoon hasn't ended in Sacramento, though I wish people would talk about her playcalling before her wardrobe -- Coach Boucek dropped the Monarchs into a zone last night, which never happened in the Whisenant regime, and resulted in a quick foul call against the Monarchs.

Brooke Smith, Stanford's wonderful finesse player, figured that her style didn't mesh in the rough-and-tumble WNBA. "I guess I wasn't exactly the kind of player they were looking for. I don't think they much liked me," she told the Marin Independent-Journal. She should've interviewed for Laszlo's vice president of engineering position, I think.

Portland hired Kayla Burt, a teammate of Giuliana Mendiola's at Washington, as assistant coach. Burt replaces Loree Payne, another Washington alum, who's returning to Washington.

Portland finished last in the West Coast Conference last season, but had eight underclasswomen on the their roster, most of whom were born after head coach Jim Sollars first took the helm for the Pilots. Point guard Laiken Dollente will go into her sophomore year having been named to the all-conference first team and Portland's most valuable player as a freshman. Carly Koebel emerged as a prolific shotblocker while starting center Rachel Warren was out with a foot injury; Koebel had that wonderful air of "I am so happy just to be here! Oh, excuse me, I just stuffed your shot back into your face". The Pilots named her most improved, and most inspirational.

Sollars is my favorite coach for the "don't put this on the record" stuff. He's been at Portland so long I'm surprised they didn't name the Chiles Center after him instead. I love the way he deals with his kids -- on the bench he'll say "oh, no, no, don't take that shot", but when the kid comes off the floor, he'll tell her, "good, good, keep shooting; we're just giving you a blow", and he's perfectly sincere. Keep shooting, but be mindful of your shot selection.

I sometimes wondered about Payne's role on the Portland bench. She is surely moving up by going back to UWashington, but now I wonder if this is the right time to move *from* Portland. If I were working for Portland's basketball program, I'd be most excited about this team with all its underclass kids growing into West Coast Conference prominence.

Which legal uniform numbers can be multiplied by 2 and 3 to make two more legal uniform numbers?

This bit of OpenLaszlofied JavaScript shows the answers to be 1, 5, 10, 11, and 15:

canvas debug="true"
method event="oninit"
for (var i = 1; i <= 55; i++) {
if ((i % 10) <= 5) {
if ((((i*2 % 10) <= 5) && ((i*2) <= 55)) && (((i*3 % 10) <= 5) && ((i*3) <= 55))) {
Debug.write(i, 'is a legal uniform number that can be multiplied by 2 and 3 to make two more legal numbers, ', i*2, ' and ', i*3);
}
}
}
/method
/canvas

The followup question is "Jamie Carey -- who began at Stanford -- wears 10 for Connecticut, and Asjha Jones -- who shares my birthday -- wears 15 for Connecticut. Which rookie in Connecticut's training camp who wore 30 at Stanford should be wearing 30 for Connecticut?".

I could hardly think of a better job opportunity for 2004 WNBA coach of the year Suzie McConnell-Serio than to take over at Duquesne -- I haven't typed it right yet -- a 13th-place team in a 10-team conference in her hometown.

I'm glad Joanne Boyle is staying at Cal.

I have to admit that I'm pleased that the Golden State Warriors are playing significant games in the middle of April. Local fans are excited for the first time in years, and the Warriors' fight for the eighth Western Conference playoff spot means 15 or 20 additional inches of space in the newspaper that's worth reading. Al Harrington befits the term "everyday forward", and Stephen Jackson is a criminal, but it's true they fit Don Nelson's scheme better than did Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy (whose Indiana team struggles to stay afloat in the East).

The most active poster in the newsgroup alt.sports.basketball.nba.phx-suns is "Go Mavs", an insecure Imus of a troll (in the Usenet sense of "troll").

I've gone totally fangeek over the TV show "Firefly", which I never saw on TV, but have watched repeatedly on DVD for two weeks. There are a dozen reasons why, including the crew of Serenity improvising a form of basketball in the ship's cargo bay.

Some joke about the typical workweek like this: On Monday, you talk about your weekend at the watercooler. On Tuesday, you look at the stuff that piled up since Friday. On Wednesday, perhaps you get a bit of work done, but then -- boom, you're over the 'hump', whether you think the term 'humpday' is stupid or not. Then you spend Thursday and Friday coasting into the weekend.

During short weeks -- those shortened by a holiday weekend, say -- the people whose office lives are like that described above might not work a lick.

So I must ask if Bob Huggins' one-year stint as head basketball coach at Kansas State is the basketball coach's equivalent of a short workweek.

Say you had some notion that you'd take a coaching gig for just one season. You could spend two months saying you were acquainting yourself with the new kids, four months playing ball (with the Get Out of Jail Free card that comes with having none of your own recruits, and having to teach a new system to unfamiliar kids, and so on), another two months talking about 'next season', and then boom, out the door. (And if you're Bob Huggins, you can do all of that while drunk!)

Sheri Murrell gave up at Washington State after finishing last in three seasons out of four. Someone has to finish last behind Stanford and eight others, but the most recent Washington State team was really bad. The Cougars came into Santa Clara in November, and SCU whacked them. WSU had a lot of big kids that the little SCU kids ran circles around; at the time, I thought it was just an excellent coaching job by the SCU staff, but maybe WSU contributed some crappy coaching on their end.

On the other hand, Jennifer Rizzotti decided to stick around at Hartford, and Billy Donovan at Florida.

I admitted several times during March Madness that I was absolutely unfamiliar with Middle Tennessee State, who'd won 25 games in a row before the NCAA tournament, and their star Chrissy Givens. After reading her résumé, I said that Givens must be the best player I'd never heard of, while ESPN told us that the Blue Raiders were the best *team* we'd never heard of.

Then Middle Tennessee destroyed WCC champion Gonzaga in the first round at Stanford. Gonzaga is an intelligent and well-coached team, and Middle Tennessee pressed them until they snapped. I was so impressed with MTSU that I said that whichever team finally beat them would win the whole thing.

The team that beat them, of course, turned out to be Marist, the most splendid Cinderella story in either Division I tournament. (Marist lost to Tennessee, who won it all.)

The only question left was where Givens would go in the WNBA draft. She's an AP Second Team All-American who led a ferocious trapping defense, and led her team offensively while making some of her best decisions in mid-air. In the classroom, she finished her degree in three years. Who wouldn't want this kid?

The other USBWA First Team All-American seniors -- Bales, Davenport, Harding, Latta -- went in the first round (except for Latta, all in the top 10). Givens dropped to #31 in the third round.

My friend Meghan offered a theory:

Marist's upsets killed Chrissy Givens. If MTSU had gone as far as Marist did, Givens would've been Armintie Price (who went #3).

I can't believe that. That would imply one of two things:

1) That Givens escaped the attention of every WNBA scout.

Impossible. MTSU played Tennessee, Maryland, and Georgia in pre-conference play, and Givens was a 2007 Street and Smith preseason All-American. Her team won 25 games in a row to end the season, holding most opponents under 60 or 70 points.

Assuming that professional basketball organizations had to have Givens on their radar, we might be able to make another pair of assumptions:

2a) Since MTSU is a Sun Belt Conference school, perhaps WNBA teams chose not to look at her until tournament time, and then...

2b) Based their evaluation of Chrissy Givens mostly on MTSU's second-round upset loss to Marist.

These support Meghan's theory, but don't you agree that this borders on league-wide insanity? Preseason All-American. Postseason All-American. Dropped to the third round because of one loss to Marist following 26 crushing wins? What about the scouts who were on hand the Friday before the loss to Marist, the ones who saw MTSU dismantle Gonzaga?

There's a well-traveled joke about some NBA general managers: that they base their entire draft around whatever they saw in the rounds of eight and four. The same kind of joke simply can't be told about an entire *league*, can it?! (The Sky and the Lynx passed on Givens *four* times. )

I don't own a Mercury jersey, because I don't like their logotype. I will reconsider if the new purple road jerseys evoke that other Phoenix basketball team, and if Givens is wearing one on opening night.

Lynx, if you let Brooke Smith wear her Stanford number in Minnesota, Stanford fans who own an antique Katie Smith jersey -- um, there might be one -- won't have to buy a new one.

It seems the plan is to move all the NWBL Colorado Chill players to San Antonio, and then drive them back to Colorado. So what's my excuse now for not becoming a Silver Stars fan? They have two of the best Chill, a favorite ex-Monarch, and a Kansas State shooter with a catch-and-shoot time of boom-that-went-down-before-you-can-type-it.

With the 36th pick, Sacramento took West Virginia's Meg Bulger, whose sister Kate was a Lynx draftee and a San Jose Spiders roleplayer. (C'mon, Whiz, at #21 what's the difference between South Florida forward Jessica Dickson and Stanford forward Brooke Smith [who went #23 to Minnesota]? The difference is that everyone at Arco knows, and perhaps loves, Brooke Smith.)

I think Phoenix's Harding-for-Smith move was their Plan B or Plan Q.

In my mock of round one, I dropped Brooke Smith to one of the Connecticut's firsts, and put Katie Gearlds in Detroit's spot. (Originally, you see, my plan was to joke about who was going to be the poutier one on the Shock bench, Bill or Brooke.) I don't think much of Gearlds -- I think she benefits unduly from being named Katie while wearing a Purdue jersey -- but she can shoot, and I figured some GM was going to buy into her hype in the first round. I didn't think it would be as soon as Seattle at #6.

The Associated Press reporter covering the Shock has to talk to Ivory Latta and Elaine Powell regularly.

Shay Doron to New York has got to make some of my friends happy.

You know Indiana was thrilled to get Alison Bales at #9. Their weakness was at center, which they patched with Tammy Sutton-Brown and the best center in the college draft. In the second round, the Fever got Brittany Wilkins' college teammate Lyndsey Medders. Hey, maybe the Indiana-Phoenix league championship I always wanted will finally happen (yeah, OK, different league).

Sidney Spencer, your mouthguard won't pass muster in Hollywood, dear.

OK, Comets fans, when Kristen blocks a shot, or hits a clutch basket, you yell NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIN! Louder!

Chrissy Givens dropped to #31?! What the hell.

Mike Thibault managed to grab Kiera Hardy two rounds later than I thought.

Washington's Cameo Hicks, and Gonzaga's Stephanie Hawk were not drafted. Perhaps they'll be invited to Seattle's camp.

This far, I like Detroit and Indiana, Phoenix and San Antonio.

The United States Basketball Writers of America announced their All-American women's team today: Bales, Davenport, Fowles, Givens, Harding, Langhorne, Latta, C. Paris, Parker, Wiggins.

The guild of inattentive dimwits, of which I am suddenly ashamed to be a part, also announced their freshman of the year. YOU be the judge. Following are the statistical lines for the nation's best two freshmen. One played 23 minutes per game, and the other played 19.3 minutes per game. On a per game basis, A might -- might! -- look a little better than B. On a per minute basis, adjusting 19.3 minutes up to 23 minutes, it is clear -- I say, clear as ice! -- that the kid playing for the tiny, overlooked west coast school had a better season than the kid who played for the powerhouse hype machine eastern school.

Player	GP	M	FGM	FGA	FG%	FTM	FTA	FT%	OR	DR	TREB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PPG
A	36	23.0	5.3	8.9	59.0	2.1	3.6	59.4	3.1	5.2	8.2	0.8	1.9	0.4	2.2	1.9	12.7
B	33	19.3	5.4	10.0	53.8	2.4	3.8	64.5	2.5	5.1	7.5	1.0	2.1	0.8	1.8	3.0	13.2
A	36	23.0	5.3	8.9	59.0	2.1	3.6	59.4	3.1	5.2	8.2	0.8	1.9	0.4	2.2	1.9	12.7
B (adj.)	33	23.0	6.4	11.9	53.8	2.9	4.5	64.5	2.9	6.1	8.9	1.2	2.5	1.0	2.1	3.6	15.7

I visited my friend Sascha in the chemical dependency ward today, where he is getting clean of prescription drugs. We played Scrabble until a couple of guys arrived to lead the AA meeting, so the Scrabble and the jigsaw puzzling ended, and the television went off. Then the meeting began.

"My name is Jason, and I'm an alcoholic."

"My name is Steve, and I'm an addict."

"My name is Kathy, and I'm an alcoholic."

"My name is Sascha, and I'm an addict."

"My name is Frisco. Y'all know you turned off a four-point game with four minutes left?"

The addicts talked about their various drugs of choice, and some said that they had absolutely nothing to do until the bars opened. I asked one if he really felt like he was without options, and he pointed me toward step 1 of the 12-step process: acknowledge your powerlessness against the drug.

If you are without options at chess, you almost certainly lose (very, very few games end in a draw where one side had no options). The best moves are the moves that increase your options, and limit your opponent's. I cannot imagine a life where *the only option* is to get another drink, or take a handful of narcotics.

***

I have excellent news to report from Saturday's round one at Maples Pavilion at Stanford. I said I feared I'd not enjoy myself -- because I would not be working -- but my ticket was for a seat on top of a mezzanine exit, so there was enough light coming through the mezzanine door for me to take notes.

Also, I have never been happier about wrongly predicting two games than I was after watching Middle Tennessee State and Marist buck my predictions that MTSU would be upset by Gonzaga, and that #4 Ohio State would dispatch #13 Marist.

When the mail promoting various All-American candidates started to arrive, the first piece was from MTSU about their guard Chrissy Givens. I said her résume was worthy of the best player I'd never heard of, and before the tournament started, ESPN said MTSU was the best *team* we've never heard of.

I am willing to change my prediction for the winner of the women's tournament to "whoever can beat Middle Tennessee State".

Defensively, the Lady Raiders attack the ball for 94 feet, often in pairs. From their 2-2-1, they attack *so* swiftly that the ballhandler usually cannot find a teammate to catch a pass. When their press is beaten, they rotate so quickly that the offensive team is 3-to-2 at best. And while the offense is contemplating how to go 3-on-2, the trapping players run back so fast that they can steal from behind.

In the halfcourt, the Raiders are so aggressive on the ball that the ballhandler is often pushed 35 feet from the basket, and they all anticipate so well that passes and dribbles are knocked away often enough for possessions to restart at 15 seconds on the shot clock. They deny the pass better than *any other team I have ever seen*. Any level, either gender. Gonzaga made several five-second violations for not being to get the ball inbounds; I recorded one possession where Middle Tennessee State swatted three passes out of bounds before Gonzaga finally turned it over.

Gonzaga is a smart basketball team. They take care of the ball. They were second in the West Coast Conference in turnover margin, second in turnovers committed, and first in assist-to-turnover ratio. The Bulldogs were coerced/hurried/forced/disconcerted into committing 36 turnovers Saturday. Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves said he hadn't seen ball pressure like that since his team gave up 101 points to North Carolina on Thanksgiving, when Gonzaga surrendered 29 turnovers.

You often hear of some running teams that the sooner the opponents score, the sooner they can run back down and score themselves. Middle Tennessee goes in saying the sooner we disrupt your possession, the sooner we can score on the break, and then you get the ball back so we can steal it again. Some of Gonzaga's halfcourt sets resulted in a backcourt steal plus a fastbreak layup, a steal on the inbounds, plus another layup. In other words, the ball could be in Gonzaga's halfcourt playbook at 10:00, and then at 9:45, Middle Tennessee has four points.

It seems almost unfair that a team that scores this many points defensively has a guard like Givens who can leap toward the basket, seemingly without any idea what she was going to do in the air, and then finish the play.

Y'know, I went so far as to record Project Defensive Scoresheet data for this game. My project for the season was to track the West Coast Conference for these defensive statistics, and since I had that trickle of light, I worked happily, and as if it might've been the WCC's last stand. It was. Their wonderful forwards were held to 11 points (half their recent average); and their guards were overwhelmed. (I'd share PDS data for Middle Tennessee, but it wouldn't represent their defense adequately).

Whatever you've heard about Middle Tennessee State, it probably wasn't exaggerated.

***

Unless one of the top teams in the nation outdefends Middle Tennessee, they're going to win the tournament. Twelve of the wins in MTSU's 25-game win streak have been by 26 points or more; they held 23 of those opponents under 70 points, and 17 under 60, but on Monday it'll be hard not to root for Marist.

The Marist Red Foxes were smaller than the Ohio State Buckeyes at every position; Ohio State pulled 18 offensive rebounds to Marist's 13 defensive. The Buckeyes were also quick enough defensively to get through the Red Foxes' high screens, and Marist was finding it difficult to get good outside shots (while the inside was full of Jessica Davenport and Star Allen).

Ohio State looked like it could win this game on either end of the court, but Marist hung around for the first half, and when they hit a trey at the buzzer to go into the locker room down by four, the feeling in the arena had already started. For eight minutes of the second half, Marist stayed within four, stayed within four, stayed within four, but one just kept waiting for this bigger, stronger Ohio State team to finally put them away.

Then Marist put together a 10-minute stretch where they held Ohio State to six points. They pulled some timely rebounds, played plucky defense, made huge shots, and the really terrific thing was that they got tougher and played bigger -- during their winning stretch, the Red Foxes stood up to the big Buckeyes, and took three offensive fouls.

It was one of those upsets that makes one glad s/he's a basketball writer. Middle Tennessee might beat these Marist kids by 50 points on Monday, but the Red Foxes will leave Palo Alto with their bushy red tails held high.

(Oh, um, I like Marist's fox mascot; it's not a dumb-looking outfit, and the kid in the suit loves his/her job, and his/her team. And, uh, well, I liked the Idaho State Bengal mascot, too. The tiger looked to be of Japanese design, and s/he had just the right attitude in flipping his/her tail at the Stanford crowd while trailing by 20; also, that kid must be in great shape to endure spelling ISU with his/her body in that huge costume several times during one timeout.)

If MTSU survives Marist, they get Tennessee next. When was the last time you watched a regional semifinal and thought "this game's the real final".

I have not watched a basketball game on TV by design this season! but I will watch MTSU-Tennessee.

***

Oh, yeah, Stanford played.

Stanford was most methodical in destroying Idaho State. The Bengals played as hard as they could; some Idaho State folks outside the arena said they were very proud of their kids, and rightfully so.

One great Jayne Appel moment made the score 76-40. We've watched Appel lead the break on the dribble, and trail the break when the pack beat her back while she cleared the rebound, but here she had to run back through traffic. Appel rebounded, and made her outlet to a guard. She and the guard ran through traffic together; Appel kept eye contact with the ballhandler all the way down the floor, then accelerated to her spot in the paint, caught the pass on the move, and made the difficult finish between defenders.

Has anyone ever performed a technical analysis on a school's performance when it sends both men and women to the big dances, and compares them according to their respective end-of-season ranks?

For instance, if one had bet against schools whose women are better than their men, that would've resulted in correct calls against Stanford, Gonzaga, Duke, Old Dominion, and George Washington. (I could've gone 15-1.)

***

It has occurred to me a number of times lately that I might've been better off after Dec. 1 had the Pacific Tigers simply whacked the San Diego Toreros. If the Tigers had won:

• I might not have seen the Tigers again. I might've thought, "hm, good team up here in Stockton", and moved on with my WCC research project. (On the other hand, Pacific's Alisha Valavanis would've missed the chuckles from my saying "Did I just say 'we'? I meant *you*.")

• I probably wouldn't've declared San Diego the best team in the conference at any time, and wouldn't've been pained by their loss to UC Santa Barbara in the first round of WNIT. "Oh," I might've thought. "Another Big West team beat San Diego. Next year for San Diego." A simpler life I would've had.

***

Does Stephanie Hawk stand a chance to make an WNBA team?

I considered this question in terms of players who are like Hawk in ways other than size and 'big' stats.

Only one WCC player has made it in the WNBA: Pepperdine's Jennifer Lacy is a roleplayer in Phoenix. (Even the smaller Big West Conference sent at least three -- Kristen Mann, Kayte Christensen, Erin Buescher.)

The 2006 WCC player of the year -- Santa Clara's Michelle Cozad -- was undrafted in the WNBA, and went on to sign in Switzerland.

If we put Hawk in the class of "marginal post players Frisco has experience watching", we could compare her to Tera Bjorklund and Cisti Greenwalt. I thought Bjorklund was a dogged inside player, and I think she's bigger than Hawk -- Hawk is often much more comfortable facing the basket from 18 feet. Greenwalt let some people down -- at least those of us who thought she should've acted very happy to be where she was, suited up for some time with championship teams Sacramento and Seattle. Greenwalt didn't get the minutes to show her shotblocking and rebounding skills; I've no idea how Hawk would like a role where she wasn't the woman.

We could probably extend this comparison to Monarchs post Brittany Wilkins. As far as inside players who can move outside go, Wilkins showed three-point range at Iowa State; and she impressed me greatly for her spirit and untiring work ethic even while she knew she was at the end of Sacramento's bench.

Who knows. I'd just like to watch Stephanie Hawk play some more after Gonzaga's first-round game against Middle Tennesee State on Saturday.

I told you a week ago that Das Leben der Anderen was one of the best movies I've ever seen, though I'm surprised that the Academy correctly awarded it as best foreign film.

I've told you several times that Stanford's Jayne Appel is the Pac-10 freshman of the year, but since she's leading the Cardinal in nearly every category on a per minute basis, she's going to outdo that and win national freshman of the year.

If Gonzaga's Janelle Bekkering had signed at Stanford along with Appel and JJ Hones, they could've started cutting the 2010 nets down now. However, Bekkering elected to stay close to the Canadian border, and since her freshman teammate Heather Bowman will be a unanimous newcomer of the year in the West Coast Conference, Gonzaga could be an unquestioned power in the WCC for another three years plus the three years they have running.

Back in October, did I say anything like "the Toronto Raptors will lose 60 games with nepotism posterboy Bryan Colangelo as general manager, or I will streak through the Montgomery Street BART station at rush hour"?

Dear UC Santa Barbara:

Thanks again for treating me well during my visit to your Thunderdome last weekend. Do you think my claim of ignorance will get me off the parking ticket I got there?

Sorry I missed your home game last night against Stanford, but I didn't think there'd be much difference between that one, and last Saturday's game against the University of the Pacific, did you?

***

Dear Santa Clara University:

Occasionally when one is shown the door inconsiderately, and after s/he has given the company long and loyal service, the company looks especially bad when the ousted has only good things to say.

I'll continue to support Michelle Bento-Jackson and the Santa Clara women, but I sorta hope Mike Montgomery tells you to shove it.

Give Jed Mettee and Aaron Juarez raises.

***

Dear WNBA management teams:

Would you please bloody sign someone, trade someone, or cut someone?

***

Dear Golden State Warriors:

San Jose Mercury News writer Tim Kawakami projects that you'll get the 10th pick or so in the next NBA draft, and he thinks you'll have a shot at Nevada's Nick Fazekas.

Please don't. If Air Force's Dan Nwaelele is available, don't take him, either.

***

Dear University of San Diego:

I'll see you Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. I have *great* advice: Ask Amanda Rego to give the ball to Amber Sprague and Kelly Winther.

Stanford's athletic department wrote:

Stanford Athletics would like to thank you for all your support and loyalty as a Season Ticket Holder. With the Pac-10 Conference Season coming to a close, we would like to invite you to a game on us!

Though they already know, of course, that I *bought* tickets to that game. Maybe I can give the voucher away.

I groused to Jon: "Stanford kinda pisses me off. They make me pay to get in, and then they turn off the lights so I can't see my notebook. Smaller, unranked schools *feed* me."

"Let me help you grasp this," said Jon. "Cal State-East Bay = 'desperate for friends.' Stanford = 'snobby prigs.' "

I can't wait to attach my Jayne Appel icon to this.

Jason, *every* Atlantic Division wife beats her husband: Teams in the NBA's Atlantic Division are 54-97 outside the division.

A quintuple if you count pouts at the referees: Stanford forward Brooke Smith narrowly missed a quadruple double against Washington State with 12 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds, and seven steals.

But when Becky Hammon set off bombs across campus, they went in: Four Colorado State basketball players were suspended indefinitely for setting off a chemical bomb at a teammate's apartment.

In four parts:
• Why Rebecca Lobo and Nancy Wilson Were Wise to Marry Journalists
• Teaching chess and basketball as metaphors for each other
• Jayne Appel fanboy squealing
• Stats geekery: How reliable is the Rebound Rate metric?

There's a new book out there: I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 50 Most Depressing Songs of All Time, which includes several of my all-time favorites, like Goodbye to Love by the Carpenters, People Who Died by the Jim Carroll Band, and Without You by many.

Not only is "Without You" a woeful tale of a failed relationship, it's made sadder by the stories of the suicided Badfinger leaders who wrote it, and the bankruptcy-fueled demise of Harry Nilsson, who made it a no. 1 hit. Saddest of all, said the writer, is that the people who made the song great suffered bad fates, while Mariah Carey and Air Supply, who butchered the song, got off with karmic slaps on the wrists.

After Nilsson, the next artist I knew to cover "Without You" was the band Heart on their 1978 album "Magazine". Before Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, and Seattle Pacific's three-point shooter Lynne Roberts (who went on to coaching excellence at the University of the Pacific), rising from the Northwest were Heart's leaders Ann and Nancy Wilson. Nancy Wilson is one of the most desirable women ever for rocking hard and rocking well, for strongly surviving the worst kind of romantic relationship (with a bandmate), for being a killer babe, and for being intelligent and foresightful enough to marry a geek journalist. If every marriage eventually and unfailingly comes down to having something to talk about, then a career woman seems to be doing well by choosing some guy with lots of stories to tell, and who writes about what the woman does for work. Nancy Wilson and Cameron Crowe, still married. Rebecca Lobo and Steve Rushin, still married.

***

The Weibel Elementary girls' basketball team attended the South Carolina at Stanford game Monday night, plus at least one of the boys from the nationally-recognized Weibel chess team.

Since I have dropped from 100 students and 20 hours teaching per week to two students and six hours per month, I'm leaping at any chance I get to talk to students, even if I have to chase them through basketball arenas.

"Hey! Do you remember me?" That kid had better know me. I once gave his class the lesson about how backward attacking moves are the hardest to find on the chessboard, while MVP Steve Nash makes them regularly on the basketball court (I gave that lesson in the gym, running from basket to demonstration board). "C'mere. Sit down." I put the kid right beside his basketball coach.

"What's the first thing -- the most important thing -- that your basketball coach tells you!?" I said. (Coaches have very little to say, but if players do those few things, they *will* improve.)

"Teamwork," said the kid.

"Good! OK, who's your chess coach at Weibel?"

"Micah," the kid said. Micah Fisher-Kirshner is an ex-state high school champion. We played for the same coach.

"What's the most important thing that he tells you to do at chess!" Admittedly, the analogies I was hoping to make were probably not going to come together. Teamwork on the floor can be analogized as piece coordination on the board, but while little kids can coordinate the pieces, the concept might be out of reach. (The two things I tell kids endlessly are "make threatening moves!"/"attack the ball!" and "bring up new force!"/"move!".)

"I don't know," said the kid.

"You don't know!? Then what are you trying to do at the board? What does Coach tell you to do?"

"I don't remember.... sit down?" This could very easily be true, and if Micah is mostly telling this kid to sit down, he's got a long way to go before becoming a chessplayer.

"When your pieces coordinate... when your pieces work together... what's that?"

"Teamwork," said the kid.

"Very good!!" I said.

Someday I'm going to have a group of chess students who like basketball well enough so that I can teach the whole class through basketball/chess metaphor. The winning side attacks. The winning side defends by attacking. The winning side puts everyone in motion. The winning side is quick, but does not hurry. The winning side sees the whole board. The winning side understands that the losers must be faked left before they can go right -- the essence of basketball, said Hall of Fame writer Koppett, is deception. Excellence at chess, said Sherlock Holmes, is the mark of a scheming, deceptive mind. All warfare, said Sun Tzu, is based on deception. Basketball and chess, you must understand, are so much alike, and that is precisely why I love them as one.

***

I was hoping South Carolina of the Atlantic Coast Conference would put up a fight Monday, because I don't like the thought that Stanford has little difficulty until tournament time. My other thought was which of Stanford's three towers would be most towering.

It was Brooke Smith, whose 14-for-17 shooting performance had the undesired effect of making 2,700 people sick of the public address call "Brooke with the hook!".

I make peculiar datagathering tasks for myself at Maples Pavilion, since they make me sit in the bleachers in the dark. I thought I would record the number of assists Jayne Appel would've made if every shot went in -- because I am enchanted by Appel's passing ability from the low post.

Marvelously, two of Appel's assists resulted from her rumbling down the court while directing the fast break and dishing on the open floor (forget that Charles Barkley is now a Ringling Brothers clown; he used to be a great, wide basketball player who could pull a defensive rebound, and drive the fast break himself -- Appel leading two fast breaks evoked Barkley in his prime).

At 13:11 of the second half, Appel blocked a shot 15 feet into the air, knowing before anyone else where the ball was coming down. While Candice Wiggins released from the backcourt, Appel caught the loose ball on the run, beat everyone down the floor with her dribble!, and fed Wiggins for a layup with a bounce pass.

At 10:22, Appel made a steal to trigger another break, split two defenders with her dribble, and found Wiggins again for the basket.

Appel plays reserve minutes because she's a freshman, yet she led Stanford in steals and blocked shots, tied for the team lead in rebounds, and was third in assists; the reason Appel was in my newspaper daily -- even though her high school was two counties away on the other side of the bay -- is that she's fantastic.

Those two assists in the open floor more than made up for the two passes she made from the low post that could've led to assists, but did not.

***

I also found myself recording the number of available rebounds while Appel was in the game. How exact is the Rebound Rate statistic, which measures a player's percentage of rebounds from available misses?

The formula for Rebound Rate is [(Rebounds * Team minutes) / (Player Minutes * (Team rebounds + Opponents' rebounds))] / 5.

During Appel's 19 minutes, 42 rebounds were available, of which the freshman grabbed seven, or 16.7 percent.

Using the Rebound Rate formula, we get [(7 rebounds * 200 team mins.) / (19 minutes * (47 team rebounds + 36 opponents' rebounds))] / 5, or 17.8 percent.

The difference stems from the Rebound Rate formula making an estimate of the number of rebounds available, while in Appel's case, we knew exactly how many rebounds were available. Suppose we adjusted the formula so that it only accounted for Appel's time on the floor:

[(7 rebounds * 95 team mins.) / (19 minutes * (42 rebounds))] / 5, and that gives us the true 16.7 percent.

Does this mean that Rebound Rate is more reliable for players who play more minutes? Yes, because the estimated number of rebounds available is likelier to be closer to the truth in a larger sample of minutes and rebounds.

Look at Santa Clara's Maggie Goldenberger on Sunday against St. Mary's. The freshman forward played the last two minutes of the game, and collected one rebound. Five rebounds were available, so Goldenberger's true rebounding percentage was 20.

According to the RR formula: [(1 rebound * 200 team mins.) / (2 minutes * (34 team rebounds + 34 opponents' rebounds))] / 5, or 29.4 percent.

Far fewer rebounds were available per minute in the 38 minutes that Goldenberger didn't play. The Rebound Rate formula greatly favored the player whose two minutes presented five rebounds. Suppose there were only three rebounds available in Goldenberger's two minutes -- then the RR formula works against her. Her true rebound rate would have been 33%, but the formula would've credited her with 30%.

For weeks it seemed that Cal and Stanford were separated by a place or two in the national polls, and then Alexis Gray-Lawson was lost to the Golden Bears for the season, while Stanford got hot. #12 Stanford's 69-44 win over #21 California ought to mean the end of the Bears' stay in the Top 25, and even the most rabid Cal fan would have difficulty suggesting that a healthy Gray-Lawson would've prevented the Cardinal runaway, because Stanford freshman Jayne Appel was unstoppable inside.

I am hardwired to love post players with passing skills. The Cal State Hayward center who sparked my appreciation for basketball used to pretend he was Alvan Adams (the best passing center of the time) while he was beating me one-on-one, so Adams, Brad Daugherty, and Brad Miller have been favorites. On Saturday, Appel passed as well as those All-Star NBA centers, and led the Cardinal in scoring off the bench.

Appel's great offensive gift is well-roundedness that belies her size. Most power position players who dwarf their opponents learn some moves around the basket, and then make a comfortable living that way. Appel can score in that fashion, but she can also draw two or three defenders inside, then fire perfect passes back out to the perimeter. She can use her height to drop passes over the defense, and she can use her width to create space to make passing angles.

No one watching the Cardinal will be satisfied with less than a Final Four appearance (they've been bounced from the round of eight how many years in a row?), and I'm officially sold. VanDerveer can roll out a front line of All-American candidate Brooke Smith at 6-3 with long arms, 6-5 Kristen Newlin (who owns Stanford's single-game record for blocks), and 6-4 Appel, and if there aren't two mismatches on the inside, two-time Pac-10 player of the year Candice Wiggins is playing like a woman on a mission on the outside (the boxscore said Wiggins was 6-for-9 shooting threes against Cal, but I don't recall one miss).

***

You only see things like this in college games: 24 kids on the floor wearing the same orange shooting shirts during warmups, then hundreds of spectators yelling at "Tigers" during the game.

The Pacific Tigers hadn't won since 12/22 against Lafayette -- "We were stuck on six [wins] for a long time", Pacific coach Lynne Roberts quipped -- and if they'd lost their fourth in a row against Cal State Fullerton, I knew exactly what I was going to say to her after the game, because I've been there. When young, talented kids go on a surprising winning run, they inevitably lose some games, and then their parents go batshit. Then I tell the parents that all the kids and I can do is go back to square one.

Pacific beat Fullerton 61-53 for their first conference win of the season, and I had to know what "square one" is for Roberts -- that is, did her Tigers got back to basics. She said the fundamental requirements for playing for her are toughness and a willingness to play defense.

The Tigers resumed playing the hardnosed defense that was absent against Riverside. The Highlanders shot 51 percent on Thursday, but the Fullerton Tigers shot 31 percent on Saturday. Better still for Pacific, the Tigers stayed tough in the second-half -- after second-half meltdowns which resulted in 25-2 against San Jose State, 31-11 against Northridge, and 67 percent shooting by Riverside, Pacific trimmed Fullerton's 33% first-half percentage to 28 in the second.

Forward Karen Dawkins, who well attacked the basket against Riverside but saw 10 of her 13 shots bounce off, got some bounces her way Saturday. Dawkins shot 7-for-15 and led Pacific with 20 points -- Pacific was +15 while Dawkins was on the floor, outscoring Fullerton 47-32. Fullerton won the 14 minutes Dawkins was on the bench 21-14.

While #40 was playing for Pacific, the score was 40-40.

I will have to ask what Pacific's record is when guard Tyler Moran sings the anthem.

CS Fullerton possessions: 72
Scoring possessions: 22
Pts. per scoring possession: 2.4
Pacific's team defensive rating: 74

	Min	FTO	FM	DReb	DFGM	DFTM	Plus/minus	Stops	Stop Pct.	DRtg
Roberts	19	1	0	2	0	0	-3 31-34	2	100	59
Lavender	27	.5	2	2	.5	1	-4 24-28	2.5	72	73
Freeman	31	1.3	4	2	5	1	+9 50-41	4.3	44	86
Kelly	32	0	5	3	.5	1	+9 51-42	4	81	68
Moran	17	.5	2	2	1	0	+6 30-24	2.5	71	73
Dawkins	26	2.3	4	6	4	0	+15 47-32	7.3	64	76
Bunz	5	0	0	0	0	0	-5 3-8	0	0	107
Head	15	0	3	6	1	4	-6 15-21	4.5	61	78
Price	28	2.3	4	3	0	4	0 40-40	5.8	76	71

FTO=Turnovers forced+steals FM=Misses forced+blocked shots DReb=Defensive rebounds DFGM=Field goals allowed DFTM=Free throws allowed Stops=FTO + (FM*FMwt) + (DReb*[1-FMwt]), where FMwt weights the values of forced misses and defensive rebounds -- a forced miss was weighted by .49, and a defensive rebound by .51 Plus/Minus=Team's points scored - opponent's points scored while player is on the floor, and the score itself Stop Pct.=The percentage of defensive possessions in which the player made a stop DRtg=The number of points allowed per 100 defensive possessions

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 have the top four teams in the country, and 22 of their teams have an aggregate record of 188-42. (At 5-6, Colorado in the Big 12 and Clemson in the ACC trail their conferences.)

I can hardly wait for conference play to start in two weeks, for then we find out which of these ACC and Big 12 teams are for real.

Miami in the ACC is 8-3, and their backcourt looked as good as any I've seen in non-conference play, so bring on the Tarheels. Missouri, 10-1 in the Big 12, hosts Prairie View (*why* the need to 'feminize' Pantherettes, and why *not* some prairieviewish mascot like Fighting Gophers?) tonight. Missouri is the best team I've seen this year besides Stanford, and they're unranked (Stanford beat Mizzou 75-60 in November). By the time the Tigers get to #9 Baylor on Jan. 31, they'll have six Big 12 games on their record; where will things stand then.

At Maples Pavilion Saturday for Utah at Stanford, someone sat in my row wearing an Iowa State sweater. "I saw Brittany Wilkins play a couple of times," he said. "She didn't play much until her senior year. Then she got drafted by the Sacramento Monarchs."

No, she didn't. She was an undrafted invitee to training camp.

"She played in a few games for them," he went on. Four games, 14 minutes, 3-of-7 shooting, one assist. Fat lot of help you are, man. I had slightly better luck with a fellow wearing a Utah shirt.

"Kim Smith was pretty solid for us," he said, "but we're really here to watch a friend of our daughter's, Morgan Warburton. She'll shoot more than she should."

At least I got something I didn't already know.

You know those exhibition games at halftime between the kindergarteners? From my seat at Maples, that's how the Cardinal and Utes look.

I couldn't believe Warburton's first shot went down. Against good baseline defense by Jillian Harmon, Warburton tossed up a 15-footer at the end of the shotclock, and just as I'm about to scribble something in the dark (they turn the lights off at Maples), the PA announcer intones, "Morgan Warburton." Maybe there's something about this kid.

For Warburton's second attempt, she was standing in the paint, 12 feet from the basket with her back turned to it. The bounce pass to her was long, so she had to go to the floor to pick it up, then knocked down the turnaround jumper.

She missed a three. The rebound came out long, and it was up to Warburton to run the charge drill to prevent a layup.

Jayne Appel's first touch resulted in an assist, kicking back out to the shooter out of the doubleteam.

Lovely defensive play by Appel and the Cardinal. Utah center Lydia Whitehead beat Appel to an offensive rebound, but Appel and two other Cardinal immediately trapped her under the rim, and induced a turnover.

Great defensive rotations by JJ Hones and Kristen Newlin. Appel fronted her woman on the low block, but the Ute caught the entry pass anyway, and met Newlin coming over from the weakside. The Ute tried a bounce pass to the woman Newlin left, but there was Hones, rotating in from the wing for the steal.

That defensive sequence was so good that I looked away from the game to write it longhand. If a play is noteworthy, I give it "!". If it's a play of the game candidate, I give it "!!", and tell myself to remember it later. If it's so good that I *know* I'll write about it later, I scratch something longhand. While I was jotting the note about Appel, Newlin, and Hones, Morgan Warburton hit a three.

Stanford was already ahead by a dozen, and then I got very involved with writing to Pacific's Karen Dawkins.

I've mentioned twice Dawkins' mental slip against San Diego. San Diego was establishing themselves with a dominating run in the first half, which Dawkins interrupted with a lovely blocked shot plus a better recovery of the loose ball. While looking for an outlet, Dawkins stepped backward over the baseline. Following that turnover, USD's Amber Sprague made a layup, and San Diego's charge continued.

If Dawkins weren't a physically gifted 20ish sophomore playing Division I ball -- say she was a 9-year-old cutting chess class to play some ball -- and asked me what the heck is so bad about that play, I'd've said:

You made a brilliant block and recovery! but you've been there before. You've made lots of blocked shots, yet you didn't know where you were on the floor. You didn't look behind you, and you didn't rely on past experience to *know* where you were; you weren't thinking. Know where you are on the court, either by looking or inference/experience. Use the experience that you have! Now, learn from this mistake. From here, you will know when this blocked shot happens again to look behind you before taking that step. Did you see defenders coming? At the very worst, let them tie you up -- maybe we have the possession arrow; maybe we get the arrow back from them, but don't turn it over for free. Geno Auriemma's three big principles are 'rebound, play defense, and *take care of the ball*.'

I scribbled all that in the dark, then looked up to see Candice Wiggins setting up the last shot of the first half. She worked the game clock to 3 or 4, then took her woman to the basket for the floater in the lane. Wiggins was so confident that she didn't go at 10 or 12 seconds so Stanford might get a second chance off an offensive rebound; she went at 3 or 4.

I missed the whole second half for trying to put into words the secret to getting people to do whatever you want them to do. The secret is "let them think it's their idea", because people will do any bloody thing if they think it's their idea, but the secret to giving them the idea seems to be "tell them the secret". If you tell people "let others think it's their idea," most will say "everyone knows that", but *every*one doesn't, so if you clue someone in, they'll be grateful that you shared it. In the case of Pacific forward Karen Dawkins, one might suggest to her that she's going to be coaching herself someday, and what's she going to tell the little kid who just recovered the loose ball on the baseline? See, then it's her idea.

Brooke Smith hits the radar, beating everyone to a long miss off a free throw. More than speed, but being first to realize where the rebound was going.