Of the 13 teams the reigning Big 12 champion Texas A&M will face in its non-conference schedule, 11 advanced to postseason play last season.

A&M will compete in two of fall women’s basketball tournaments in the country – the Jimmy V Women’s Basketball Classic versus 2010 Elite Eight participant Duke on December 6 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., on ESPN2 and the Maggie Dixon Classic against Rutgers on December 19 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Defending national champion Connecticut and Ohio State also highlight the Maggie Dixon Classic tournament field.

“Our schedule, particularly over the last three years, has given us one of the top RPIs in the country and helped us earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament,” said head coach Gary Blair. “We are playing a number of quality opponents this season and feel we have assembled one of our best road schedules to date.”

The Aggies face 2010 Sun Belt Conference champion and NCAA second round participant Arkansas-Little Rock in their season opener on November 16 at Reed Arena. Four days later, the Aggies take a road trip to old Southwest Conference rival Rice in Houston on November 20 followed by a home  game with Big South Conference champion and NCAA participant Liberty on November 22 in College Station.

A&M will spend the Thanksgiving holiday in paradise at the Cancun Thanksgiving Classic. A rematch with Arizona of the Pac-10 Conference and 2010 Postseason WNIT semifinalist Michigan of the Big Ten Conference is scheduled on November 26 and November 27.

The Aggies return stateside to host 2010 Postseason WNIT champion California on December 3 along with a  home game versus 1999 national champion Purdue in the Big 12/Big Ten Challenge on December 9 and Mountain West Conference champion and NCAA participant TCU on December 12.

The Aggies close out the month of December at the Surf ‘N Slam College Hoop Classic in San Diego, Calif. A&M will take on Postseason WNIT participant Drexel in a first-time meeting between both schools on December 28 and either host San Diego State or UTSA in the championship or consolation game on December 30. Last year, SDSU reached the NCAA Sweet 16 knocking off rival Texas at the Austin first-and-second round regional site.

A&M starts the New Year with Louisiana-Monroe on January 4 at Reed Arena, prior to its 16-game Big 12 Conference schedule which will be released at a later date.

Baylor is set to meet reigning national champion Connecticut this season on November 16. The Lady Bears will also match up against four other teams that saw 2010 NCAA Tournament action: Tennessee, Liberty, Notre Dame and Michigan State.

“We have assembled the toughest non-conference schedule in program history,” said Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey. “I feel that our program is at a point that we will benefit tremendously by playing a tough schedule. In addition to playing at Connecticut, we’ve got Tennessee and Notre Dame, among others, coming to the Ferrell Center. Baylor fans will see a lot of All-Americans playing in Waco this season.”

While Baylor met UConn in last year’s NCAA Final Four, the two teams have never met during the regular season. The Lady Bears will travel to Connecticut in a made-for-TV event. The Huskies travel to Waco for the 2011-12 season game.

The Tennessee Lady Vols make their first Ferrell Center appearance on December 14. Baylor and Tennessee split their two games last season. The Lady Vols won the season opener in Knoxville (74-65) while the Lady Bears downed Tennessee in the NCAA’s Sweet 16 in Memphis, 77-62.

Overall, Baylor’s home slate features three teams that posted over 23 wins last season and two teams with 25 or more wins appear on its road schedule.

Baylor returns four starters from last season’s team that finished the year with a 27-10 mark: guards Kelli Griffin, Melissa Jones and Shanay Washington and All-American post Brittney Griner.

Baylor’s 16-game Big 12 schedule will be announced at a later date. The Lady Bears play home and away games against Big 12 South foes Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, will host Iowa State, Kansas State and Missouri and play at Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.

2010-11 Baylor Lady Bear Non-Conference Basketball Schedule
NOVEMBER

1 Mon. – St. Edward’s University (EXH.), Waco

5 Fri. – Texas A&M International (EXH.), Waco

12-14 Fri.-Sun. – World Vision Invitational, Waco

(Baylor, Florida International, Montana State, Rice)

16 Tue. – at Connecticut, Hartford, Conn.

19 Fri. – Michigan State (Big 6 Challenge), Waco

23 Tue. – Texas Southern, Waco

26 Fri. – Liberty, Waco

28 Sun. – Southeastern Louisiana, Waco

DECEMBER

1 Wed. – Notre Dame, Waco

5 Sun. – Minnesota (Big 10-Big 12 Challenge), Waco

14 Tue. -  Tennessee, Waco

21-22 Tue.-Wed. – at Bahamas Sunsplash Shootout, Nassau, Bahamas

21 – Syracuse

22 – Clemson

30 Thur. – UT-Pan American , Waco

 
Whitney Hand’s Twitter message about her medical clearance.

Oklahoma sophomore guard Whitney Hand received a medical clearance to play after six months of rehabilitation from an ACL injury.

Hand suffered a tear in her right knee on Nov. 27, 2009 during a game against San Diego State.

"Whit, to no one’s surprise has been maniacally committed to her rehab,” said Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale. “She has attacked it with the same passion and determination that she exhibits on the basketball court.”

The knee was surgically repaired in December.

The 2009 Big 12 Freshman of the Year was averaging 13.4 points and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 39 percent from 3-point range when her season came to an end.

In a curt statement issued late Monday, Texas head coach Gail Goestenkors announced the dismissal of freshman guard Lauren Flores from the team.

“Lauren Flores has been dismissed from the Texas Women’s Basketball team effective immediately for violation of team rules. We have spoken with Lauren and her family and will assist with the transfer process.”

Flores, 5’7”, is from Houston and played at North Shore High School. She is North Shore’s all-time leading scorer. After suffering an ACL tear in her left knee during practice on Monday, March 1, 2010, she did not play for the rest of the season.

Texas A&M travels to Durham to face Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the ninth annual Jimmy V Women’s Basketball Classic on Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 at 7 p.m. ET. The non-conference showdown will be televised on ESPN2.

TAMU makes its debut in the Jimmy V Classic, while Duke is making its fourth all-time appearance in the event. Blair, who is entering his eighth year at TAMU, said the school “jumped at the chance” to play in the showcase.

“It is definitely a tremendous honor, not only to represent our school and program, but to represent the Jimmy V Foundation and its cause. We are excited to be a part of such a tournament to raise awareness for cancer research.”

The Aggies are 3-0 in the all-time series with the Blue Devils including a 95-77 upset in the team’s regular-season opener on Nov. 16, 2009 in College Station as well as a 77-63 win in the NCAA Sweet 16 en route to the program’s first-ever Elite Eight appearance in 2008.

Tickets for the Jimmy V Women’s Basketball Classic will be available for purchase by calling the Duke University ticket office at 1-877-375-DUKE (3853).

Former South Carolina center Kelsey Bone ended speculation as to her transfer plans with the announcement that she signed with Texas A&M.

“We had recruited Kelsey Bone since she was in the seventh grade,” said Texas A&M coach Gary Blair. “I remember the heartbreak our entire community felt during that timeout of the McDonald’s All- American Game [when she announced her decision to attend South Carolina]. However, we wished her and her family well. We rolled up our sleeves and went back to work with our young ladies.”

Bone revealed her decision in a phone interview with the Houston Chronicle and Texas A&M announced the newest member of their team today. “I’m a Texan born and raised through and through,” said Bone. “I felt it was the best decision for me to transfer and come home to be closer to my family. The Texas A&M coaches were still waiting for me with open arms. I am really excited to join the Aggie family and be a part of the winning tradition that Coach Blair, his staff and players have built there.”

Bone, a 6-foot-5 center out of Dulles High School, requested a transfer from the University of South Carolina and will sit out the 2010-11 season due to NCAA transfer rules. She will be eligible to play for the nationally-ranked Aggies during the 2011-12 campaign as a sophomore. The No. 2 overall prospect in the Class of 2009 by several scouting services, Bone is the fourth McDonald’s All-American and highest-rated player to ever sign with A&M.

“Today is a testament of the close knit family we have with our players, my staff and our entire program,” said Blair. “There is an unbelievable amount of pressure on the elite athletes to make the right decision at the age of 17, and sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. Sometimes your priorities change. The state of Texas is a special place. I’m not so sure if homesickness is the right word. Kelsey has deeps roots in this state that come from playing alongside young ladies she has grown up with and playing in front of friends and family. Those roots are very special – it is why I chose to come to Texas A&M as well.”

During her freshman season for the Gamecocks, Bone became the first South Carolina player to be tabbed Southeastern Conference Newcomer of the Year. She also earned Second-Team All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman Team honors by the league’s head coaches.

Prior to South Carolina, she was a four-year letter-winner in basketball under head coach Doug Lechtenberger at Dulles High School in Sugarland, Texas. Bone was a consensus All-American averaging 19.2 points and 8.7 rebounds as a senior. She was named the 2009 McDonald’s John Wooden National High School Player of the Year and made three appearances on the prestigious Parade All-America Team.

Bone is already familiar with Aggie players including Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and All-Big 12 Second Teamer Danielle Adams.

“I followed the Aggies throughout the season and NCAA Tournament,” said Bone who is friends with Adams, Sydney Colson and fellow Class of 2009 signee Kristi Bellock of St. Rose, Louisiana. “I was happy to see the team do so well. Coach Blair is a great guy and his staff are very deserving of the success they saw this past season. I hope to add to the program any way I can and help them progress toward winning a national championship at A&M.”

Stanford (36-1) led during most of Sunday night’s semifinal game against Oklahoma ( 27-11) during the women’s NCAA Final Four in San Antonio and pulled off a 73-66 victory. At the half the Cardinal had a 34-21 lead.

However, late in the second half the Sooners came alive and began nipping at the heels of Stanford. But it was too late for Oklahoma and the Cardinal advanced to Tuesday’s final.

Nnemkadi Ogwumike led the Cardinal with a career-high 38 points along with 16 rebounds. Danielle Robinson contributed a team-high 23 for the Sooners.

Box Score

None of the head coaches in this Final Four are strangers to the event:

Kim Mulkey (Baylor) – 2-0 (1.000)
Geno Auriemma (Connecticut) – 12-4 (.750)
Tara VanDerveer (Stanford) – 5-4 (.556)
Sherri Coale (Oklahoma) – 1-2 (.333)

Baylor and UConn have never played against each other.

The NCAA provided some of these game notes:

• Of the four Women’s Final Four teams competing here in San Antonio, UConn is the only team not to feature any student-athletes from the state of Texas.
• Of the four head coaches in the 2010 Women’s Final Four, all have ties to USA Basketball, but only Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer coached the U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball Team (gold medal at 1996 Atlanta Games). UConn’s Geno Auriemma has been selected as the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team coach.
• Including this year’s participants (Baylor and Oklahoma), the Big 12 Conference has had six Women’s Final Four participants since the league’s inception in 1996-97. Oklahoma has made the most Women’s Final Four appearances among Big 12 schools with three (2002, 2009, 2010), while Baylor has two (2005, 2010) and Texas had one (2003). Texas also had two as a member of the Southwest Conference (1986, 1987), as did fellow SWC transplant Texas Tech in 1993. Baylor’s 2005 title remains the lone national championship won by a Big 12 school in the conference’s 14-year existence.
• Tennessee owns the most NCAA titles with eight, followed by UConn (6); Stanford (2); USC (2).
• Tennessee owns the most NCAA Women’s Final Four appearances with 18, followed by UConn (11) and Stanford (9).
• This is the first time that the Southeastern Conference has had no representative at consecutive Women’s Final Fours. Last year was the first absence of an SEC team since 2001.
• This year’s NCAA Championship represented the first time Tennessee had ever failed to reach the regional finals in consecutive seasons.
• The NCAA Women’s Final Four is being held for the fourth time in a domed facility but it’s the first time in a dome since 2005 when Baylor won the title at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. The Women’s Final Four was also held in a domed facility in 2002 (San Antonio won by UConn here at the Alamodome) and in 2003 (Atlanta won by UConn at the Georgia Dome).
• The Women’s Final Four returns to Texas for the fourth time, having also been played in the Lone Star State in 1985 (at Austin, Texas – Old Dominion defeated Georgia in final, 70-65), 1987 (at Austin, Texas – Tennessee defeated Louisiana Tech in final, 67-44) and 2002 (at San Antonio, Texas – Connecticut defeated Oklahoma in final, 82-70).
• This will mark the seventh consecutive year (and 16th time overall) that one conference has sent multiple teams to the Women’s Final Four; this is also the first time that the Big 12 has sent two teams to the same Women’s Final Four.
• This is the first time the Women’s Final Four has had two private schools (Baylor, Stanford).
• Should both win their semifinal games, Connecticut and Oklahoma would meet in a rematch of the 2002 NCAA championship game won by the Huskies, 82-70 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Other previous NCAA title game rematches have featured Connecticut-Tennessee (1995, 2000, 2003, 2004 – all won by Connecticut) and Louisiana Tech-Tennessee (1987, 1998 – both won by Tennessee).
• Women’s Final Four three-peats — should UConn and Stanford advance, it would be their third consecutive matchup in Women’s Final Four, but first in the national championship game (the two sides split national semifinal contests, with Stanford winning, 82-73 at Tampa in 2008 and UConn returning the favor, 83-64 at St. Louis in 2009). The last time the same two teams met in three consecutive Women’s Final Fours was 2002-04, when Connecticut and Tennessee squared off in the championship game (2002 in San Antonio) and semifinals (2003 in Atlanta; 2004 in New Orleans), with the Huskies winning all three matchups.

BAYLOR

• Baylor is the ninth home state team to reach the Women’s Final Four, and the first since LSU in 2004 (New Orleans –lost 52-50 to Tennessee in national semifinals). Other home-state Women’s Final Four qualifiers are: Old Dominion (1983 – Norfolk), USC (1984 – Los Angeles), Western Kentucky (1986 – Lexington), Texas (1987 – Austin), Stanford (1992 – Los Angeles), Penn State (2000 – Philadelphia) and Missouri State (2001 – St. Louis). Those eight prior home-state participants went a combined 2-6 (.250) in the national semifinals — only USC and Stanford won their national semifinal contests, with both going on to win the national championship (Stanford won the most recent home-state title, defeating Western Kentucky, 78-62 in the 1992 NCAA final in Los Angeles).
• At 6-foot-8, freshman center Brittney Griner is the second-tallest player in Women’s Final Four history. Anne Donovan, who led Old Dominion to the 1983 Women’s Final Four, was the tallest at 6-foot-10.
  Griner has a Baylor school-record three triple-doubles this season. There have been 11 triple-doubles in NCAA Championship history, but none in the Women’s Final Four. The last triple-double at any point in the NCAA Championship occurred on March 27, 2005, when Michigan State’s Kristin Haynie had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a Kansas City Regional semifinal win over Vanderbilt.
• Griner’s 218 blocks so far this season broke the Baylor, Big 12 and NCAA single-season records. Griner’s 14-block effort against Georgetown in a Memphis Region second-round game (at Berkeley, Calif.) set a single-game tournament record.
  With 10 blocks against Tennessee in the Memphis Regional semifinals, Griner became the first player with 10+ blocks in multiple tournament games.
  Griner’s 35 blocks have
• roken the NCAA tournament record previously set by Duke’s Alison Bales in 2006 (30 blocks in six games). Rebecca Lobo (UConn, 1995) and Courtney Paris (Oklahoma, 2009) are tied for third with 22 blocks.
• In the history of women’s collegiate basketball, only seven college women have ever dunked and only one has dunked in an NCAA tournament game (none in the Women’s Final Four). Tennessee’s Candace Parker had two dunks against Army in a 2006 first round game in Norfolk, Va.
• Baylor, Duke and Kentucky were the three schools that advanced both their women’s and men’s teams to the regional semifinals (Sweet 16) of this year’s NCAA Championship.
• Kim Mulkey is the only person in women’s college basketball history to win a national title as a player (Louisiana Tech in 1982), an assistant coach (Louisiana Tech in 1988) and a head coach (Baylor in 2005).

CONNECTICUT

• UConn is seeking the sixth undefeated season in NCAA women’s basketball history. The Huskies already own three of those marks. Other undefeated teams include 1986 Texas (34-0), 1995 UConn (35-0), 1998 Tennessee (39-0), 2002 UConn (39-0), 2009 UConn (39-0).
  For the fourth time overall and first time in back-to-back seasons, the Huskies have brought an undefeated team into the NCAA tournament (1994-95, 2001-02, 2008-09 and 2009-10).
• If Connecticut runs the table, it will be the first NCAA Division I women’s team ever, and first team since John Wooden’s UCLA teams of 1972 and 1973, to win back-to-back national championship undefeated seasons.
• UConn is the only school that has had its men’s and women’s programs win national titles in the same year (2004).
• All three of UConn’s perfect seasons (1995, 2002, 2009) have culminated with winning the Women’s Final Four in the Central Time Zone – 1995 in Minneapolis, 2002 in San Antonio and 2009 in St. Louis.
• UConn is currently on an NCAA-record 76-game winning streak with its last loss to fellow 2010 Women’s Final Four participant Stanford in the semifinals of the 2008 Women’s Final Four. The Huskies have beaten their four NCAA tournament opponents this year (Southern, Temple, Iowa State, Florida State) by an average margin of 47.0 points per game and lead the nation in scoring margin (+36.1 ppg.) this season.
• The Huskies are making their eighth Women’s Final Four appearance this decade, tops among all schools ahead of Tennessee (7), LSU (5) and Duke (3).
• Head coach Geno Auriemma is 12-4 (.750) all-time in 10 career trips to the Women’s Final Four (semifinal losses in 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2008). He is one of only three coaches with a winning Women’s Final Four record among those with six-or-more games coached, joining USC’s Linda Sharp (5-1) and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt (21-10).
• In the last decade, UConn (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2009) and Baylor (2005) have combined for six of the last nine championship titles. The Huskies are 5-2 in NCAA semifinal appearances since 2000. They have never met Baylor in the 36-year history of the program.
• UConn has won every game this season in double digits and has the chance of repeating its 2008-09 run to become the first team in NCAA history, men’s or women’s, to go undefeated and win each of its games by at least a 10-point margin.
• For the second consecutive year, junior forward Maya Moore has been named the recipient of the State Farm Wade Trophy, becoming the third two-time Wade Trophy winner in the award’s 33-year history – the other two-time honorees were Old Dominion’s Nancy Lieberman (1979 and 1980) and LSU’s Seimone Augustus (2005 and 2006).

OKLAHOMA

• The Sooners are making their second consecutive appearance and third overall in the Women’s Final Four (2002, 2009, 2010).
• Oklahoma is the only team in the 2010 Women’s Final Four that has not yet won a national championship.
• Oklahoma is a #3 seed. Only twice in the history of the NCAA tournament has a seed other than a #1 or a #2 won the national championship. North Carolina won the 1994 championship as a #3 seed and Tennessee won the 1997 championship as a #3 seed.
• OU is 4-0 in overtime games played this season including a 62-60 victory over Baylor during the Big 12 regular-season slate, and a 77-72 victory over Notre Dame in the Kansas City Regional semifinals.
• Stanford is the only team in this year’s Women’s Final Four that the Sooners have not played this season. OU was 2-1 against Baylor and lost a 76-60 decision to Connecticut in a mid-February game played in Norman.
• Oklahoma is the only Women’s Final Four team to have two different student-athletes with major professional sport athletes in their immediate families with junior forward Carlee Roethlisberger (sister of NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger) and senior center Abi Olajuwon (daughter of NBA great and 2008 Naismith Hall of Fame member, Hakeem Olajuwon, who played for the University of Houston in the 1983 and 1984 Men’s Women’s Final Fours, helping the Cougars to national runner-up finishes behind North Carolina State and Georgetown, respectively).

STANFORD

• Stanford is 5-6 all-time in the NCAA Women’s Final Four, 60-21 (.741) in the NCAA tournament, and has made 23 consecutive appearances. This is the ninth Women’s Final Four for Stanford, and the eighth under head coach Tara VanDerveer (she did not lead the Cardinal to its 1996 Women’s Final Four berth, having taken a sabbatical to coach the U.S. Olympic Team – Amy Tucker and Marianne Stanley served as Stanford’s co-head coaches that season).
• Stanford is one of six schools to reach at least three consecutive Women’s Final Fours, doing so three times (1990-92, 1995-97, and 2008-10). Other teams are Louisiana Tech (1982-84; 4 in a row from 1987-90); Tennessee (4 in a row on 3 occasions – 1986-89; 1995-98; 2002-05); Auburn (1988-90); Virginia (1990-92); Connecticut (5 in a row from 2000-04; 3 in a row from 2008-10); and LSU (5 in a row from 2004-08).
• VanDerveer is third on the all-time coaches’ tournament appearances list with 25 (one with Ohio State and 24 with Stanford) behind Tennessee’s Pat Summitt (29) and Georgia’s Andy Landers (27). VanDerveer is fourth on the all-time Women’s Final Four wins list with five, trailing Summitt (21), UConn’s Geno Auriemma (12) and former Louisiana Tech mentor (and current Baylor assistant) Leon Barmore (6), and she is fourth on the all-time NCAA tournament victories list (58).
• Of the 12 trips to the Women’s Final Four by current Pac-10 Conference schools, Stanford has nine of them, while the other three have been by USC
• Stanford is 4-2 all-time against Oklahoma, including a 2-1 record in the NCAA Tournament, the last meeting in the tournament vs. the Sooners came in the 2006 regional semifinal in San Antonio (game was played at the AT&T Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs), with the Cardinal earning an 88-74 victory.
• Stanford enters the Women’s Final Four riding a 26-game winning streak. This is the fifth Women’s Final Four appearance in which the Cardinal have brought at least a 20-game winning streak in the national semifinals. The Cardinal brought streaks of 23 (1996), 25 (1997), 22 (2007) and 20 (2009) into four of its previous five appearances. Three of these previous four trips resulted in losses in the national semifinals.
• The Sacramento Regional final victory over Xavier was just the second Stanford victory decided by single digits, while 33 of the Cardinal’s wins have been decided by 10 points or more, 24 by 20 points or more, 11 by 30 points or more and two by 40 points or more.
• Senior center Jayne Appel’s 22 blocked shots in her NCAA tournament career are two shy of ninth on the NCAA Tournament career blocks list.

The WNBA held its annual pre-draft conference call yesterday. While the timing of the nearly hour and a half long teleconference overlapped with the NCAA Final Four media day, representatives from newspapers, websites and radio outlets dialed in to listen and ask questions. ESPN analysts Carolyn Peck and Rebecca Lobo led off with their views of next week’s draft and fielded questions. Lobo left the call a few minutes early to attend to her five year-old.

Former Rutgers player Epiphanny Prince, who played overseas this season instead of staying in college for her senior year, was a topic of conversation. Peck talked about the maturity Prince might have gained playing overseas with a funny anecdote:

[O]ne year of playing internationally can allow a player to grow up. One article said that she learned you can’t carry $10,000 through an airport, now why she would be carrying that much money, I don’t know, but she said that was a lesson learned, so she got a lot of off-the-court maturity as well.

WNBA coaches became the focus after the Q & A with the analysts ended. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, Tulsa Shock Coach/General Manager Nolan Richardson and Los Angeles Sparks coach Jen Gillom gave opening statements. All three are entering this year’s draft period for the first time as head coaches of WNBA teams. However, Reeve’s former role as an assistant to Bill Laimbeer and the Detroit Shock gives her the edge in experience.

Reeve:

It feels like my eleventh draft. My role has been the same throughout my career, in this case with Roger (Griffith) being the General Manager, I kind of found that the process for me, I’ve thought about this the same way I always have. I really like the process of evaluating players. I think for us it is not going to be that much different.

After the coaches finished up, draft prospects Allison Hightower (Louisiana State) Danielle McCray (Kansas),  Monica Wright (Virginia) and Prince (Botas-Spor/Rutgers) joined in the call.

McCray talked about her progress in recovering from knee surgery and her draft outlook.

It’s going pretty good.  Tomorrow will be my six weeks post surgery. I am just rehabbing everyday getting my strength back to normal. The doctors have been encouraging me. By hearing things and listening to people talking, before this injury I think I would have been pretty high, but the injury has impacted where I might go. I don’t think it will hurt my chances to be drafted, but it most definitely is going to hurt where I might go.

The transcripts at WNBA.com:

• ESPN Analysts
• Coaches and GMs
• Draft Prospects

Meanwhile on the men’s side, the controversy over talks of expanding the NCAA tournament is getting heated. Sherri Coale and Tara VanDerveer gave their perspective in yesterday’s media call. Here’s an interesting comment for a fan under an article on ESPN.com about the topic:

This is all about money, and the worst thing that could happen. The symmetry of this tournament is one of the best things about it. Win 6 games, and the national championship is yours. Now the “good” teams in power conferences will play even worse, tired out first round opponents, eliminating the exciting ohio’s over georgetowns and murray states over vanderbilts. A 16 has never ever gotten past the first round…how is a team not even in the top 64 ever going to win the tournament.

VanDerveer’s opinon:

I think if they do it on the men’s side they should do it at the same time on the women’s side, just in the fact that opportunities to play in the NCAA tournament are really special. And if that’s what’s I think so many people are losing their jobs because they maybe don’t go to the tournament.

Maybe that is motivating in a positive way for women’s basketball too. If they were to go next year, I would hope women’s basketball would do the same thing.

Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale disagrees:

Well, I have a very strong opinion about it.  I don’t think it’s good for the men’s game.  How could you why would you touch what just happened in the men’s tournament?

I’m speechless to even respond to it.  How could you ask for a better sporting event than what’s just occurred?  And you look at our women’s tournament and we’ve had all kinds of close games and victories at the end and overtimes.  We’re getting it.  We’re figuring it out.

And I think anytime you expand that field, what you’re doing is a couple of things.  Number one, watering down what happens. And, number two, you’re sort of defeating what you’re trying to accomplish with parity in terms of competitive games and earning the right to be in something special. And I’ll tell you, I just feel very strongly that getting into the tournament is something that you earn over the course of a season.  And I don’t think that just everybody should get to go.

Four teams. One tournament. The head coaches of Stanford, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Baylor spent Wednesday afternoon meeting the media and talking about their teams and the NCAA women’s basketball Final Four. What did they have to say about Brittney Griner?

Baylor coach Kim Mulkey:

She will tell you she came to Baylor not to become the greatest basketball player ever, she came to help win a championship. Because there’s no greater feeling. While she understands with her size and her ability come much recognition, welcomed recognition, much attention, but Brittney is the same kid today that she was before she started the season, that she was in high school. She’s like a sponge. She wants to win. She wants to get better. She doesn’t want to disappoint people. And she’s just got that hunger and that presence about her that I’m not sure sometimes if she really realizes how much attention she’s garnering right now. I think she’s just always been a kid that’s tall and can do some other things that other kids can’t do, and she just comes to play.

[Full transcript]

UConn coach Geno Auriemma:

I was watching a couple of their games today, and from what I’ve seen briefly and from what I’ve been able to put together, obviously there’s no one like her in the game today. I think she’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue when it comes to conversations about what is one of the most exciting things that’s happening in the game of women’s basketball.

And I think she’s improved tremendously from when I saw her in high school, in just a short period of time. And I don’t think there’s been anyone that young that’s been able to impact games as much as she’s had the ability to do, especially in the NCAA tournament and the Big 12 tournament as well. And I would like to think that her future is like maybe Yogi Berra would say, her future is still ahead of her. She’s only going to get better. She’s only going to get better. If she’s this good now, it’s scary how good she’ll be when she gets a little more experience and a little more mature.

[Full transcript]

Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale:

As impactful as she is on the offensive end, it’s the defensive end where I think she makes the biggest difference.

I think we can all put together some schemes to keep the ball away from really, really talented post players.  I shouldn’t say keep the ball away, but to minimize the touches of really talented post players, whether you sag or you double or you go on a catch or you go on the bounce or you zone.  There’s a million different things you can do.

That doesn’t mean you’re going to keep her from scoring baskets.  You can minimize and maybe neutralize a little bit.  On the defensive end it’s a conundrum, because she can stand in the middle of a lane and block your shock outside the elbow.  And I’m not exaggerating, there’s no hyperbole there.  It’s really, really hard to get to the basket.

So at the end of the day to beat Baylor, you’re going to have to make some outside shots.  And you’re going to have to not turn the ball over and you’re going to have to not be impacted emotionally and mentally once you block shots, because until you’ve been on the floor with it, it’s a really, really hard thing to handle.  And the first time we played against them, it took us by surprise.

And, you know, you prepare for it.  You watch film.  You test out if you’re tall and you try to replicate it as best you can.  And you just can’t.  And the more we were on the floor with it, the better I think we got at dealing with her defensive presence.  But it’s a different deal.

[Full transcript]

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer:

I think Kim is a great coach. She has an exceptional player and something different to prepare with Brittney Griner. No one else in the country has that type of post presence defensively, and so I think that there might be some adjustments that Connecticut will have to make to go up against her.

[Full transcript]