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It's the Pac-10's tourn Staley's homeward bound, LSU must rise to the occasion
Sports Illustrated For Women's Trisha Blackmar spotlights the players and programs worth keeping an eye on in the upcoming women's college basketball season. Click here for SI For Women's Top 20 rankings and in-depth team previews. And then there was one...The Pac-10 presidents convened by videoconference last week and voted, after years of debate, to approve a postseason women's tournament which will begin in 2002. Only Stanford objected, on the grounds that the negative impact on academics would be too great. Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne supported the outcome saying, "It's a good first step for us, but I have very strong feelings that we need to get away from an 18-game conference season." Thorne said she would like to see a regular-season slate that would include a maximum of 14-16 conference games to allow for scheduling flexibility and an opportunity for teams to improve their power rankings. The Ivy League now stands as the only conference which doesn't have a conference postseason tourney. The Pac-10 men's tournament is expected to generate more than $300,000 for each school thanks to a television deal with Fox Sports, while the women's tourney will likely cost each school $35,000 per year. Slam Dunks Purdue freshmen: Especially Cherrise Graham, Erika Valek and Shereka Wright who combined for 49 points in the Boilermakers 119-44 trouncing of a Finnish club team in a Nov. 1 exhibition game. Temple coach Dawn Staley: The return of Staley to Philadelphia, her hometown, brings much optimism to a program that hasn't had a winning record since 1989-90 when the Owls went 16-15. Tennessee center Ashley Robinson: The 6-foot-5 freshman from Grand Prairie, Texas has been giving incumbent junior Michelle Snow a run for her money in the competition for the starting center position, much to the delight of the Lady Vols coaching staff. Louisiana Tech guard Essence Perry: The 5-foot-7 junior transfer from Trinity Valley (Texas) Community College has been hot in practice. Look for her to take over the point and move junior Brooke Lassiter to the two-guard position. Old Dominion forward Hamchetou Maiga: The senior swing player reportedly has added a deadly accurate mid-range jumper to her already stocked arsenal. Airballs LSU: Already suffering from a lack of height, the Lady Tigers announced that junior DeTrina White, their 5-foot-11 starting center, would be out until December with a back injury. Erin Buescher's WNBA prospects: The 6-foot-2 guard and three-time Big West player of the year at UC-Santa Barbara transferred in September to The Master's College, a small Christian NAIA school in Santa Clarita, Calif. Buescher said she transferred in order to "pursue on a deeper level my commitment to God." Wisconsin center Krista Bird: The 6-foot-3 Wisconsin senior will have to sit out the first eight games of the season. She was suspended, along with two UW men's basketball players and 26 Badgers football players for accepting improper discounts on merchandise from The Shoe Box, a shoe and clothing store 25 miles from the school's campus in Madison. Penn State's backcourt: On Oct. 30, the Lady Lions lost their second player in less than two weeks to a knee injury when freshman guard Jennifer Brenden tore her left ACL in a non-contact drill. Eleven days earlier, fifth-year senior guard Chrissy Falcone ruptured the reconstructed ACL in her right knee. Air Force: The Falcons will start the season with 12 freshman and no seniors on their roster. Improving on last season's 1-13 record in Mountain West play might prove difficult. Trisha Blackmar's Inside Women's College Basketball column appears every Friday on CNNSI.com.
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