No Surprise: Maya Moore is ESPN's Preseason PoY

Don't stop us if you've heard this before.

It's not that we can't come up with more complimentary and flowery things to say about Connecticut junior Maya Moore. It's just that in naming her ESPN.com's unanimous preseason player of the year for the second straight season, anything we have to say seems a little … redundant. And not at all surprising...

Great Story on Women's Hoops History

At 92, Vivian Sansom recalls when women played basketball on a half-court. They couldn't dribble more than twice at a time. Nobody dunked. Nobody got on television.

It was a different world in 1940, when she coached her first squad. When she took a teaching job at N.C. College for Negroes - now N.C. Central University - the president asked her why a woman would want to work at all. Once hired, if she needed so much as a basketball, she had to ask the president to fetch it out of a locked closet....

Pau Gasol to Skip Worlds?

Gasol to Skip 2010 Worlds?
Will the Lakers Pau Gasol skip next summer's FIBA World Championship? The MVP at the 2009 European Championship, 2008 Olympic silver medalist and 2006 FIBA World Championship gold medalist seems to be seriously thinking about it.

Kelly Faris looking to be next Indiana great
The headline above Indiana's Basketball Hall of Fame Web site reads: "In 49 states, It's just basketball…This is Indiana!" This is a tribute to the amazing collection of talent that has come out of the Hoosier state, including greats like Oscar Robertson and Shawn Kemp and recent players like Mike Conley Jr. or Courtney Lee, and perhaps best known of any player coming from this state is Larry Bird.

Tina Charles On the Beat & Nneka Ogwumike and Education

From Mechelle Voepel on ESPN.com:

There was a time when Peter and Ify Ogwumike were not especially concerned with the budding athleticism of their oldest daughter, Nnemkadi, now a sophomore forward at Stanford.

The couple, both from Nigeria, met while attending Northern Colorado University in Greeley, Colo., in the 1980s. After marrying while living in Utah, they settled in Texas. Peter, an engineer for Hewlett-Packard whose work takes him between Nigeria and the United States, and Ify, a middle school principal in the northern Houston area, have four daughters. Continue ...

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You think of Tina Charles as Connecticut's power inside, a key figure in the hope for a repeat NCAA title, a good bet as the No. 1 WNBA draft pick in April, right?

Sure enough, she's all of that. But it wouldn't really be too big of a stretch to envision her in any of these scenarios.

The imposing yet benevolent figure is walking her beat on the streets of New York City. "Good afternoon, Officer Charles!" a shopkeeper calls. "A lot of weather we're having, huh?" continue...

USA Men's WUG Team Members in the News

Trevor Booker and Evan Turner, a pair of players on the USA Men's World University Games Team last summer, collected preseason All-America first team accolades from Basketball Times ... Mike DeCourcy writes that Robbie Hummel, another key player on that team, could be a solid NBA player

AP Names Preseason All-Americans (all USA Basketball Alums)

Jayne Appel, Tina Charles and Maya Moore were all invitees at the USA Basketball Women's National Team Fall Training Camp. Today they were also listed on the 2009-10 Associated Press Preseason All-America Team. Charles and Moore, along with USA National Team head coach Geno Auriemma are also part of the No. 1 team in the A.P. preseason poll. Congrats also go out to Jantel Lavender and Monica Wright, also USA Basketball alums, who were also tabbed as preseason All-American first teamers.