Womhoops Guru

Mel Greenberg covered college and professional women’s basketball for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he worked for 40 plus years. Greenberg pioneered national coverage of the game, including the original Top 25 women's college poll. His knowledge has earned him nicknames such as "The Guru" and "The Godfather," as well as induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Temple Aids Rutgers' Recovery

Guru's Note: Space limitations slimmed our print coverage, which is also at Philly.com. This version for the blog also has some enhanced Rutgers items.

By Mel Greenberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

PHILADELPHIA _ A one-woman show by Temple senior Kamesha Hairston was not nearly enough for the Owls, who dropped a 62-48 nonconference game to Rutgers Wednesday night at the Liacouras Center and parted with an 11-game win streak.

Hairston scored 20 points, the only player in double figures for Temple (15-5), which had beaten the nationally-prominent Scarlet Knights (11-6) twice in their two previous regular season meetings.

Rutgers used a balanced effort with four starters scoring in double figures, led by freshman Epiphanny Prince, who also had 20 points.

Kia Vaughn celebrated her 20th birthday with 13 points, while Heather Zurich and Essence Carson each scored 12 points for Rutgers.

The win enabled the Scarlet Knights to enjoy somewhat of a recovery from Sunday night's Big East visit to then-No. 15 Louisville, where they squandered a 16-point lead in the second half and lost, 53-50.

“I’m much happier than I have been,’’ Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said. ``We were disciplined. And we executed. And we haven’t done that in a long time. It was good to see Epiphanny handle the ball and run the offense.’’

Prince was used at the position by necessity because junior point guard Matee Ajavon, the other starter, spent much of the game on the bench in foul trouble.

As much as the final score might be reflectively of Stringer’s tenacious defense, Temple did enough to implode on its own.

``They just wanted it more,” Hairston said afterwards of a Rutgers squad loaded with high school all-Americans. The group includes freshman Rashidat Junaid, a 6-foot-4 center from Camden Catholic who was the Inquirer’s South Jersey player of the year last season.

Temple’s undoing occurred after the Owls’ senior guard Fatima Maddox’s layup tied the score at 34-34 with 13 minutes, 45 seconds left to play.

Rutgers then went on 21-6 run to grab the outcome as Temple missed a bunch of shots and also made some crucial turnovers.

The Owls, who held a slim 25-24 halftime lead, shot 36.8 percent from the field in the second half, while Rutgers sizzled at 60.9 percent.

``We took too many jump shots early in the second half and we didn’t make them, we didn’t convert,” Temple coach Dawn Staley said. ``Against a team like that, you have to play a little more aggressive and try to get to the basket.

``We got Matee into foul trouble and took a definite threat off the floor and we tried to capitalize on that.’’

Other parts of Staley’s strategy backfired, however.

``We wanted the ball in Zurich’s hands all night,’’ Staley said of the Rutgers sophomore forward. ``We just didn’t want Vaughn to get off a little bit. We played the perfect first half, we just couldn’t duplicate it. We just had turnovers at bad times.’’

Zurich, a sophomore, took advantage by scoring a career-high 12 points, and also set career marks for assists with five, and field goals made on 5-for-7 shooting.

"Heather made a big difference because she was able to take the pressure off of Kia," Stringer said.

"The minute we put Heather in there, she started opening it up," Stringer said of Zurich's outside shots opening the inside. ``If they (Temple) still double downed on Kia, she was hitting the shots.''

Zurich said of her performance, ``I just tried not to hesitate as much on my shot, I guess. My teammates were getting me the ball in places I could score, especially with people doubling on Kia down low.

``My problem is I hesitate too much. I guess that comes under the confidence category. If the shot is there I have to take it. If the pass there, I have to give it up. But, yeah, definitely this will help my confidence.''

Vaughn said of her teammate, ``A lot of people say, `Kia Vaughn,' but without Heather, I wouldn't be there. When Heather is in there, she is the key. She passed very well today. She's calm. Very calm.''

Among Temple teammates who provided little help to support Hairston, was junior center Lady Comfort, who has had some career nights this season, but had just eight points – three in the second half -- and seven rebounds.

``Lady Comfort, I don’t know where she was second half,’’ Staley said. ``She’s got to bring it every night. This is what it is about being a great player. You have to do it on a consistent basis. She didn’t get it done on either side of the ball. She’s working on it, but we needed her.’’

Rutgers next hosts Michigan State Sunday night, while Temple has a major Big Five and Atlantic Ten confrontation at St. Joseph's.

Contact staff writer Mel Greenberg at 215-854-5725 or mgreeberg@phillynews.com.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Socio economic status strengthen of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh


Ms. Ramya Raina Shruti
Director
TCTD Society
Bnagalore Karnataka
India
shruti_india@walla.com



HIV (Human Immuno Deficiency Virus), the virus responsible for AIDS, is known to be transmitted through sexual intercourse with an infected partner, the use of infected blood, needles or syringes, and from an infected mother to her children. By the end of 2006, about 47 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, 90% of them in poor and developing countries. During 2000 alone, a total of 5.3 million adults and children were found to be newly infected with HIV, and in the same year, three million people died from HIV/AIDS - 80% of them Africans.


Although at present Bangladesh is categorised as a low HIV prevalence country, from an epidemiological point of view the HIV epidemic in Bangladesh is evolving rapidly. Bangladesh has a relatively low prevalence of less thlan 1 percent among vulnerable groups except in Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) where HIV positivity has rapidly increased from 1.7 percent in 2000/2001 to 4.9 percent in 2004-05 in central Bangladesh. The environmental closeness of Bangladesh to Myanmar and consequently, the Golden Triangle drug trail has made it a major transit route for drug smuggling and its easy availability in the area.


However, the transmission route of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh is no longer confined to the IDUs but spreads further to the female sexual partners of IDUs and their children. This is not surprising as women are mostly vulnerable to HIV infection and other sexually transmissible diseases because of geographical and socio-cultural factors including economic, educational and legal discrimination and unequal gender relations. The most alarming news is that -- during 5th round of surveillance in 2003/2004 -- in one pocket of central Bangladesh HIV infection rate among IDUs has reached concentrated epidemic level of 8.9 percent. During the sixth round in Central-A1, out of 664 IDUs covered, 7.1 percent tested positive for HIV. On top of that for the first time HIV was detected in cities other than Central-A during the sixth round. These two new places are Southeast-D and Northeast-F1 with the HIV prevalence rate among IDUs at 0.6 percent and 2 percent respectively.


Women are disproportionately infected with HIV/AIDS for biological, social and economic reasons. Globally, 47% of HIV-positive adults are women, but it is increasing rapidly. Certainly, adolescent girls’ prostitution is booming in Bangladesh. Adolescent girls engage or are forced into prostitution for trafficking or socio-economic reasons. But in addition to sexual exploitation, they face all sorts of violence. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation carried out a recent field investigation, the research confirmed that adolescents girls’ prostitution is widespread in Bangladesh, although hidden at first sight from foreigners, especially in Dhaka city. Adolescent girls involved in prostitution are to be found in residence homes converted into brothels or in hotels. The majority are aged 15-18.


Higher level of female commercial sex in Bangladesh than elsewhere in Asia: female sex workers in Bangladesh brothels report among the highest turnover of partners anywhere in Asia, at an average of 18.8 clients per week. Averaging 44 clients a week, hotel based sex workers are still higher. This high turnover is very important, because it means that once a woman does contract HIV from any of her clients, she can pass the infection on to a large number of people very quickly as the condom use is still very low while someone buying sex in Bangladesh.


Trafficking is another major problem in Bangladesh, Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation found, Trafficking is strong link HIV pandemic, if we see; globally of those HIV epidemic region, trafficking & sex exploitation is regular feature of there. Mostly trafficking victim are used commercial sex industry in other geographical area, they stay in there, as like in prison, they have no rights of speak out themselves. They are forced to sexual conduct with multiple partners, but they have no ability to insist upon condom use or safe sex and are vulnerable to HIV/STIs transmission. Some time they have to face physical attack, but they don’t get health care facilities.


References:
1. UNAIDS
2. NASP-GO-Bangladesh
3. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
4. CDC

1:21 AM  

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