All sorts of things to note this time. First and foremost,
womenscollegehoops.com named Alana Beard a first team
preseason All-America. Iciss Tillis was one of their honorable mentions.
Alana was one of three juniors named to the first team, so she'll have her
hands full with great competition as she tries to become Duke's first
national player of the year.
Switching over to the WNBA, here's Georgia Schweitzer's latest
diary entry, where she talks about the game that made her
want to be a coach. Some of you may remember it: UNC @ Duke, 1998. The
interesting thing about the diary is why it made her want to coach.
Georgia's Minnesota Lynx have been up and down as of late. A one-point
loss to the Houston Comets dropped them to 4-4 on the season, with many of
their losses close ones. Georgia played
well before fouling out in an overtime loss to Seattle.
The Lynx had a double-digit lead but lost in overtime. Georgia only took
5 shots in scoring 5 points, but she played fine defense (taking a charge
and blocking super rookie Sue Bird twice).
Overall, she's
averaging about 5 ppg, 3 rpg and 2 apg as a starter. Her role is to
simply run the team and not make mistakes, and as such she is averaging
only 1.4 turnovers per game despite playing over 25 minutes a game. On a
different note, here's an
article about Sonja Henning, who played basketball for
Stanford but graduated from Duke Law School.
Lastly, a number of potential Duke recruits are playing at the USA Youth
Development Festival in Colorado. This includes Alison Bales, Brittany
Hunter, Chloe Kerr, Tiffany Jackson, Dominique Redding, Dorian Williams,
Meg Bulger, Lauren Ervin, Jenn Hall and Noelle Quinn. Here are the
rosters and here are the
results, (through the semifinal round).