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UConn boasts program’s
second unbeaten season
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Even the Connecticut
players can’t decide if they’re the best women’s
basketball team ever.
All
they know is that they’re the national champions — again.
And unbeaten — again.
Pushed
to the end by a feisty Oklahoma team, Connecticut scratched out
an 82-70 victory Sunday night to cap the program’s second unbeaten
season with its third national championship.
The
Huskies (39-0) won in such convincing fashion this season —
their average victory margin of 35.4 points is an NCAA record —
they could claim with some validity that there has been no better
team. Could, but won’t.
“When
you’ve got players ahead of you, like Rebecca Lobo and Jennifer
Rizzotti, you can’t be the greatest,” UConn’s Tamika
Williams said, mentioning
two of the stars on the Huskies’ first unbeaten team.
“Are
we up there with one of the best? Yes. Can we challenge one of the
best teams? Yes. But the game is moving so fast, there is going
to be another four or five like us that is going to do some good
for women’s basketball.”
Duncan
claims ‘foul play’ in final shot against Lakers
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The call that
came helped the Los Angeles Lakers take the lead. The call that
didn’t come allowed them to keep it.
A
whistle that blew with 15.9 seconds to go sent Derek Fisher to the
free throw line and he made both shots. The referees’ silence
that accompanied Shaquille O’Neal’s block of Tim Duncan’s
shot moments later meant the Lakers would beat San Antonio 96-95
Sunday.
“That
was all ball,” said O’Neal, who had 24 points, nine rebounds
and five blocked shots. “Even if it wasn’t all ball, they
owed me that call for all the times that I get hit on the arms.
There was no foul. I’ve been getting beat up for 10 years,
I’ve only complained twice in that time. If they don’t
like it, too bad.”
The
Spurs didn’t like it.
“I
turned and shot, he got me on the wrist, and no foul was called,”
Duncan said.
Sorenstam
wins 33rd career victory at championship
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) — The
best player wears red on Sunday, and that no longer applies only
to Tiger Woods.
Is
anyone in golf more dominant right now than Annika Sorenstam?
The
31-year-old Swede became the first back-to-back winner of the Kraft
Nabisco Championship, where she was the only player to break par
all four rounds on a difficult Dinah Shore tournament course at
Mission Hills.
It
was her 33rd career victory, and 10th in her last 26 tournaments.
And it sounds as though Sorenstam is just warming up.
“I
want to see how good I can be and how good I can play,” she
said.
“That’s
what drives me every day. Just because I had a great year last year
doesn’t mean I’m happy with that. Victories like this
push me more, and make me want to see what else I can win.”
The
LPGA’s emphasis on “Five Points of Celebrity” made
no mention of its top players wearing shiny red shoes for the final
round of the first major championship.
Marshall
fans, coach hope to adopt good luck charms
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Two Marshall
football fans and coach Bob Pruett want to use pieces of a crashed
airplane that 32 years ago decimated the university’s football
program as a good luck charm.
The
two fans, Millard Robertson of Huntington and Ric Griffith, city
council president of Kenova, have saved four pieces of the plane
that went down in Huntington on Nov. 14, 1970, killing 75 Marshall
football players, coaches and supporters.
Now
they want to encase the fuselage pieces in glass and have them used
in a ritual ceremony at Marshall home games.
Griffith
told WOWK-TV he wants to establish a tradition where Marshall players
touch the plane pieces as they enter the field.
He
cited similar stadium traditions where Notre Dame players touch
a “Play Like a Champion Today” sign and Clemson players
touch Howard’s Rock.
“As
they enter the field the fans will know that they are touching and
having a personal link to the people from that crash,” Griffith
said.
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