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.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Women's Basketball Hall of Fame -- Day 2

By Mel Greenberg

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. --
Well, as life would work out, the Guru does not have to bear the brunt of providing every detail down here from this weekend's Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies that began Friday with a nice reception, meal, and the storytelling session.

On Saturday morning will be the second annual 4-Kay run here to fight cancer in memory of the late North Carolina State coach Kay Yow.

Saturday night, of course, will be the actual induction ceremony, which will return to the Tennessee Theatre for the first time since the Guru's induction in 2007.

The reason the Guru can slack off a bit is that in addition to the local coverage, Helen is on the scene from womenshoops.blogspot.com and Mechelle Voepel is also here.

The Guru will tape all the speeches Saturday night and transcribe them but since he has an early Sunday morning flight back to Philadelphia, you all may have to wait a bit.

As for the Guru's activities, he is pleased to report that after bumping down the runway in a manner of speaking, he has been able to get airvborne in terms of flying the new iPad and, yes, it really is a nifty device.

Willbill and the Guru made it to Calhoun's to join local longtime Tennessee beat writer Dan Fleser for lunch.

Chris Weller has a sizeable group on the scene -- the Guru had a nice conversation with former Maryland star Jasmina Perazic -- and among the atendees to salute the former Terrapins coach is retired but longtime sports information director Jack Zane and his wife. Several more former assistant coaches are also on the scene.

Temple coach Tonya Cardoza checked in with the Guru to say she will arrive mid-Saturday afternoon.

Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer, a member of the WBHOF board, is here and closed out the session with some eloquent remarks that were noteworthy also for their brevity.

Stringer has had a history of last words becoming quite lasting in time, according to veterans of postgame press conferences.

In terms of recalling games, the one that all in the Maryland group centers on was the first sellout back in the day when Maryland off a win over Virginia, had zipped to No. 1 after beating the Cavaliers in Charlottesville, and then the two met again in a 1-2 game that went into overtime at Cole Fieldhouse until Virginia got revenge.

Another memory was the Maryland win over Tennessee in the first AIAW tournament that led to a Final Four format in which the Terrapins made the finals in Los Angeles along with Montclair State (Carol Blazejowski), UCLA (Ann Meyers-Drysdale), and Wayland Baptist.

Hopefully, the Guru has the group all right because this is being written off the top of his head, having spent the last several hours bringing the iPad up to snuff.

Former Georgia star Katrina McClain is here on behalf of her teammate Teresa Edwards, who will join McClain, a past inductee, as a member.

The Connecticut delegation will be on the scene later Saturday.

WNBA Friday Night Fireworks

The Guru said he would monitor the WNBA's five-spot on Friday night, though taking a brief timeout from the league to be on hand down here.

Well judging by the results -- yes the WNBA Center Court apps works great on the new device -- things are getting interesting in a hurry.

The Connecticut win over Indiana -- they meet again Sunday night in the Midwest -- propelled the Sun into first place in the East. The New York Liberty took down the Atlanta Dream at home and can complete a dynamic week by winning at Washington Saturday night.

However, the Mystics will be returning off an impressive win in Chicago so it will be quite the battle in the Verizon Center.

San Antonio made a little headway at the bottom of the West by beating Tulsa anjd moving into a tie with the Shock.

Out West, the Seattle Storm -- the 9-1 Seattle Storm -- once again powered over the Los Angeles Sparks, who are now 2-7 and could easily be a game worse had not they produced a one-point win over Phoenix earlier in the week.

So that's it for the moment.

But we'll be back with something later in the day.

-- Mel