Guru’s WNBA Report: A Philly Accent Still Prevalent At Saturday’s Liftoff For WNBA’s Unique Season No. 24

Guru’s note: Though there’s no Philly WBB Summer League this time around due to the coronavirus.

However, as the WNBA is set to launch its re-configured, delayed and downsized season, Bob Heller, who has helped the cause with those six-games, two-nights per week reports from Hatboro, is made for this setup.

 

And he’s around to add to the contributions from Rob Knox and whoever else wants in. As the 22-games per teams, plus playoffs, begins, just contact your Guru.

 

The attempt here will be to supplement and enhance, not necessarily duplicate, except when topics are obvious, as we go.

 

In fact, those of you running your own operations who follow the Guru and even those who don’t, if you want to send a list of what you want to reveal as planned coverage, the Guru would be happy to list ala TV Guide concept a what’s coming from whom once a week or more.

 

If enough of you want in, we’ll have to do a little organizing, you can also list specific game coverage, and this is open to regular beat writers for news organizations.

 

Maybe we’ll wait a bit to see who’s interested.

 

That said, here’s Bob with, as Rob says, some added Guru knowledge to the mix, and off we go.

 

By Bob Heller

 

The 2020 WNBA season is set to begin on Saturday with six of the league’s 12 teams in action at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, which is near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

A 100 miles away at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, the NBA setup and operation in avoiding the virus is called the bubble, but while the WNBA has a similar setup, the players nicknamed their home the Wubble, which has been taken up in official terms by league operatives.

 

Since there’s been no Philly team per se, over the league history, though former 76ers honcho Pat Croce made an attempt during the early expansion years, the Guru adopted a trio of reachable franchises by beginning with the New York Liberty, then soon added the Washington Mystics, and then later the Connecticut Sun, as the adopted local teams, though this summer with the entire league in Florida, travel will be to the opposite side of tablet, laptop, at times cell phone, and TV screen monitors serving as press row.

 

While the Philadelphia area may not be represented with its own team, the league boasts several players who have had stellar collegiate careers in and around the Philly region along with several coaches with Philadelphia ties.

 

And actually, right at the very top, second-year commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who has had to steer through a myriad of situations, including getting this season launched, is from Haddonfield, N.J., which is right across the Delaware River, a few miles inland in what we call South Jersey.

 

She played her collegiate basketball at Lehigh, then under future Hall of Fame, now newly retired, Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw, who has several former star players in the league. McGraw earned Big Five Hall of Fame stature as a star with Saint Joseph’s. 

And at league headquarters in the communications department, Ron Howard has a past position as the chief PR person for the NFL Philadelphia Eagles, while longtime staffer Samatha Tager played collegiate ball at Muhlenberg, which is up by Allentown, Pa.  

The Connecticut Sun PR contact, Annette Hogan, is a recent Villanova intern in the Wildcats athletic department.

 

 Meanwhile, as far as those on the court with Philly DNA, the two most well-known area players will not be playing this season. 

 

St. Joseph’s University’s Natasha Cloud will sit out the season to concentrate on social justice issues while teammate Elena Delle Donne,  a graduate from the University of Delaware will be sitting out due to medical reasons.  

 

Both players are members of the Washington Mystics, the 2019 WNBA Champions.

 

Longtime Mystics assistant coach, Marianne Stanley, was named Head Coach of the Indiana Fever last November. She counted the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University (an assistant to Hall of Famer C. Vivian Stringer)  among her collegiate coaching stints while playing on three AIAW National Championships teams at Immaculata in the early 1970’s.

 

Stanley’s team has two veterans on her squad with area ties.  

 

Temple’s Candice Dupree, whose Owls number is now retired, begins her 15^th season in the league while Erica Wheeler out of Rutgers enters her sixth season.

 

  Dupree has scored more two-point field goals (2,626) than any other player in WNBA history and ranks fifth on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list (6,452 points) and 8^th in rebounds (2,946).  

 

 Wheeler, an all-Big East Player out of Rutgers was the WNBA All-Star Game MVP in 2019 and is the sixth undrafted free agent in league history to reach 1,000 points and 400 assists.

 

Five additional players from Rutgers also populate the WNBA rosters.  

 

Washington Mystics guard Essence Carson has scored over 2500 points in her 12 seasons in the WNBA while Epiphanny Prince has scored over 3,000 points in ten WNBA seasons. 

 

 Prince played in just three games last season for the Las Vegas Aces and signed with the Seattle Storm as a free agent in the off-season.

 

Carson was a long-time member of the New York Liberty early in her career.

 

Also from Rutgers is veteran Kia Vaughn, a member of the Phoenix Mercury who has played ten seasons in the league; Betnijah Laney, whose mom Yolanda was an all-American at Cheyney for Stringer, is a four-year veteran guard on the Atlanta Dream and Kahleah Copper, who grew up in Philly,  a four-year guard on the Chicago Sky.

 

The Sky also has one of two area rookies in the WNBA this season, Stella Johnson, a recent graduate from Rider University. 

 

 Johnson scored over 2000 points in her four seasons at Rider and was the MAAC Player of the Year and honorable mention WBCA all-American last season, leading the Broncs to the top seed of the MAAC tourney.

 

She was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury before signing with the Sky.

 

Princeton’s Bella Alarie will play her first WNBA season for the Dallas Wings.  

 

Alarie, a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year, scored over 1,700 points in her four seasons as a member of the Tigers.  Alarie is also the first player in Ivy League history to be named an AP all-American twice.

 

The Tigers are also represented by Blake Dietrick on the Atlanta Dream. Dietrick has played three seasons in the league. 

 

In fact, the two will be on opposite sides Sunday when Dallas and Atlanta meet in their season openers.

 

Temple’s Shey Peddy rounds out the Philadelphia Big 5 players on this year’s WNBA rosters. 

 

 Peddy is the fourth area player on the Mystics roster.  She appeared in 15 games last season, her first in the league, after just missing roster status in several past efforts.

 

One more player was on the list until earlier this week when veteran Alex Bentley, part of the famed Penn State backcourt with Maggie Lucas, was let go by the Las Vegas Aces.

 

And in terms of those who have come through here as visiting teams from conferences that are also inclusive of local affiliates, as well as those beyond, most notably the domination of former Connecticut players, one of those has a Philly claim as one of several who played for the powerful Philadelphia Belles AAU organization, specifically, Seattle’s Breanna Stewart, the MVP of championship Storm in the 2018 playoffs.

 

In the coaching ranks, former La Salle University great Cheryl Reeve begins her 11^th season as the Head coach of the Minnesota Lynx.  

 

Reeve has won 231 games over the past ten seasons and led the Lynx to four WNBA titles in the past seven seasons.  The South Jersey native is also the general manager of the team.  

 

And by virtual of a stint here in their shortened second season, former North Carolina State, then a rookie on the ABL Philadelphia Rage, is now a newly hired assistant in Phoenix.

 

She had been on Joe Logan’s staff at Loyola, Md., and he is a former assistant here to Cindy Griffin at Saint Joseph’s.

And back at the executive level, Dan Padover, general manger of basketball operations at MGM Resorts International, home of the Las Vegas Aces, was born and raised in South Jersey, in Northfield. His family was Sixers nosebleed season tix holders and he started his career with the NBA 76ers as assistant video co-ordinator. 

He in the past had a long stint with the New York Liberty and was a video coordinator for Rutgers women’s basketball under C. Vivian Stringer, and, get this, was a student assistant on the second of the two back-to-back UConn unbeaten teams In 2010 under Philly-bred Hall of Famer Geno Auriemma.

Also Greg Bibb, president, chief executive officer, and partner of the Dallas Wings once referenced the Guru while Bibb was with the Washington Mystics of spending previous time in Philly. 

 

The Guru Contributed to this Report