Here’s Charlie’s latest projection through games as of Feb. 21.  Scroll over a team name for more analysis. Records reflect Division I competition only.

Automatic bids are in CAPS.

This is the absolute best time of the year for talking basketball with everyone.

Bids by Conference is going to make some people edgy…

• Big 12 (8)
• ACC (7)
• Big East (7)
• SEC (6)
• Big Ten (3)
• Atlantic 10 (3)
• Pac-10 (3)
• America East (2)
• Sun Belt (2)
• Colonial (2)

I love the ACC, was part of it for 4 years.  It is arguably one of the Top 2 Conferences in the country year after year… but, 7 bids is high!  I say 5.  UNC and Maryland are all questions and NC State is on the cusp.  Each of those teams are currently 5-7 or 6-6 in the ACC.  If you allow all of them in, how then do you say no to Wake Forest and maybe Boston College?  Both are either 5-7 or 6-6 and Wake Forest is a head of UNC and Maryland in the ACC standings.  don’t go to the RPI and Strength of Schedule… it’s all comparable.

Why not give the Atlantic 10, Colonial or Mountain West a 4th, 3rd or 2nd team in, respectively.   Maybe give one or two of the MAAC, MAC, America East or Missouri Valley and 2nd team in.

Everyone screams for more parity in Women’s Basketball.  You can’t have parity if the Top 5 Conferences hold 31 of the 64 spots in the NCAA tournament every year.  Those coaches will never be able to consistently convince (recruit) top prospects to play in conferences where only one team goes to the NCAA’s year in and year out.

We’ll see…

Over the past two weeks there has been less content on our ABR site.  My apologies.  I have been preparing the ABR ACC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PREVIEW.

Each pre-season I found it helpful to write a one-page Pre-Season Opponent Overview. I always felt it helped with early season practices and planning for what we might see.

Here is an example:  PRE-SEASON OPPONENT OVERVIEW

With that in mind, and now that everyone is about two weeks into practice, I wanted to provide you with the ABR ACC Women’s Basketball Preview.

The intent is to summarize the 2008-09 season and forecast somethings to expect for 2009-10.

I’d welcome your feedback.

Enjoy…

2009 – 10 ABR ACC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PREVIEW

The ESPN Networks 2009-10 NCAA Women’s Basketball Schedule Includes Approximately 250 Games; The Most Ever in ESPN History

Schedule includes entire NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship

DOWN LOAD A PRINTABLE COPY HERE

ESPN Networks 2009-10 Women’s Basketball Regular-Season Schedule

- 2010 CHAMPIONSHIP WEEK SCHEDULE - 

The 2009-10 ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360.com and ESPN FULL COURT women’s college basketball schedule will feature approximately 250 telecasts – the most ever on the ESPN networks, including the entire NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship.  Highlights of ESPN’s 31st season of women’s college basketball coverage include:

• For the 17^th consecutive season, the State Farm Tip-Off Classic will commence ESPN’s coverage of the sport. This year’s matchup will feature Baylor at Tennessee on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
• ESPNU Road to the Championship, a women’s basketball doubleheader created by ESPN Regional Television (ERT), will be played on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, home of the 2010 Women’s Final Four.  National powers Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas and Texas Tech will take part in the doubleheader televised by ESPNU and ESPN2 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., respectively. This will be part of ESPN’s second annual College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon.
• Entering its fourth season, ESPN2’s Big Monday presented by Bud Light prime-time Game of the Week series will include 11 games (up from eight) throughout January and February, featuring the best programs in Division I women’s basketball. The series will begin on Jan. 11 at 7:30 p.m. with an ACC matchup featuring Maryland at Virginia.  New to this year’s schedule is the addition of Big Monday doubleheaders on Feb. 8, Feb. 15 and Feb. 22.  The games will generally air during the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. windows.
• The 2009 Jimmy V Women’s Basketball Classic on December 7 will be held at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. for the fourth consecutive year and will feature Florida vs. Rutgers in a showdown at 7 p.m. on ESPN2. 
• ESPN’s weekly College GameDay Driven by State Farm® college basketball series and the Saturday Primetime game-of-the-week telecast — returning for a sixth consecutive season – will begin Saturday, January 16, 2010 from Storrs, Conn. for the women’s BIG EAST showdown between Notre Dame and defending National Champion Connecticut.  It will mark the first time the show has originated from a women’s game.  Two one-hour segments of the show will air at 10 a.m. and at 8 p.m.  The game will air on ESPN at 9 p.m.
• February Frenzy returns on Valentine’s Day Sunday, Feb. 14, as ESPN2 showcases six regionalized games within two telecast windows. For a third year in a row, ESPN will support the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund, in partnership with The V Foundation, during its annual “February Frenzy” women’s college basketball games.  The full national ESPNU women’s game featuring Kentucky at Vanderbilt at 6 p.m. on Feb. 14 will also be part of the “Frenzy,” as will Big Monday doubleheader on Feb. 15 showcasing North Carolina at Virginia at 7 p.m. and Connecticut at Oklahoma at 9 p.m.
• As part of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN360.com’s week-long men’s and women’s Championship Week presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods, the networks will combine to present 13 women’s conference championships, including every game from the quarterfinals through the championship for the BIG EAST, plus the SEC Semifinals and SEC Championship. Other women’s championships: Big Ten, Atlantic 10, Summit League, Sun Belt, NEC, Horizon League, West Coast Conference, WAC, MEAC, SWAC and SIAC.
• Overall, the ESPN networks will showcase more than 130 regular-season games, over 40 conference tournament matchups, the Division II Women’s Basketball Semifinals and Championship, and all 63 NCAA Division I Championship contests.  Additionally, ESPN will continue to present the exclusive live announcement of the 64-team NCAA Tournament field as part of Selection Monday, Mar. 15, at 7 p.m., with ESPNU offering bonus coverage with an additional hour of NCAA Women’s Basketball Selection Special: Extended Coverage from 8–9 p.m.
• ESPNU will televise 54 games, including 37 regular-season contests (up from 31), 17 conference championship matchups and the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship Semifinals.  In addition, the 24-hour college sports network cover the Fourth Annual Maggie Dixon Classic on Sunday, Dec. 13, from Madison Square Garden. The doubleheader will showcase Baylor vs. Boston College at 1 p.m., followed by Rutgers vs. Tennessee at 3 p.m.  The schedule will also be highlighted by a BIG EAST and SEC game-of-the-week most Sunday afternoons during January and February.
• ESPN360.com will simulcast every game on ESPN and ESPN2 and will offer complete telecasts of every NCAA Women’s Tournament game.

DOWNLOAD WITH ABOVE LINK

• 40 televised games, making up 78 television appearances, including a CBS telecast of North Carolina at defending national champion Connecticut on Jan. 9 to open the 2009-10 television package..
• Six ESPN2 games, highlighted by Maryland at Virginia on Jan. 11, Connecticut at Duke on Jan. 18, Miami at NC State on Feb. 14 for “Pink Frenzy” and Florida State at Maryland on Feb. 28.
• Five additional nationally televised games on Fox Sports Net and affiliates, including a rematch of the 2009 ACC overtime championship game and the 2006 NCAA national title game between Duke and Maryland on Jan. 24 and the classic in-state rivalry of Duke at North Carolina on Sunday, Feb. 28, which will conclude the 2009-10 regular season.
• 28 conference match-ups on the league’s regional sports networks, which include Comcast SportsNet, Fox Sports Net South, Fox Sports Net Florida, and New England Sports Network. The regional sports networks reach approximately 24 million households.
• Seven games of the 2010 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament to be held March 4-7 at the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum – four on the league’s regional sports networks and three nationally on Fox Sports Net and affiliates. FSN will broadcast the ACC Tournament semifinal games and the 2010 ACC Championship game.
• A nationally televised hour-long preview show on Fox Sports Net and affiliates with a time and date yet to be determined.

Let’s realize this… college kids to to parties.  All of them.  Athletes are no different.  Even the most dedicated of athletes still go.  It’s fun, it’s social, it’s their friends, classmates and peers.  Drinking or no drinking, your student-athletes are going to be at parties and potentially in the wrong place at the wrong time at some point during their collegiate career.   Athletes at parties is nothing new.  What is new is the technology.  Technology has put every intoxicated or high athlete on the front page of newspapers and all over the internet.  We all saw Michael Phelps.

As coaches, we are going to need to be prepared to help our student-athletes through this.  Helping them through it is the key, especially with female athletes.  It can not simply be about discipline.  Though discipline, responsibility and accountability are necessary, discipline is after the fact.  Discipline is a reaction.  We need to be proactive, help educate before they are in these situations.  Empower our student-athletes to make better decisions.  Hopefully, avoid as many situations as possible.

One of the best ways to do that is through establishing an acceptable “Standards of Behavior.”  ”Rules” are made to be broken.  ”Standards” are developed to be attained, much like goals.  Athletes are goal oriented.  With standards you tie the group together.  The strength in decision making is in numbers.  When a team has an agreed upon standards of behavior, they support and police each other.  It is a powerful tool to enabling student-athletes to make the right choice.

The catch… even when student-athletes make the right choice, it may look wrong.

Although the news headlines and photo snaps will touch Men’s Basketball and Football more than any other sport, don’t think it doesn’t happen in women’s athletics as well.  Without details, we all KNOW it does.

While shopping recently at RadioShack, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow was approached by a woman with a seemingly innocuous request to take a picture with him. But an instant before her mother snapped the photo with a cellphone camera, the woman tried to take off her shirt.

“It’s happened four or five times,” Tebow said with a sigh. “Most of the time I just dive out of the picture. Some people can just be crazy.”

Tebow is all too familiar with the omnipresent spotlight.

“It really hinders you from going places,” he said. “People will do a lot of things to get you to try and look like you’re not doing something right.”

In the era of Twitter, Facebook, badjocks.com and Deadspin.com, being the big star on campus no longer means only being the life of the party. For all the images of marching bands, cheerleaders and raucous student fans associated with college football and other sports, the romantic notion of a quaint campus life for star quarterbacks like Tebow, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Texas’ Colt McCoy has all but disappeared, killed off by a combination of cloying fans and new technology.

We monitored social networking Web sites all the time.  We collected cellphones on the road.  We have heard that it is common for cellphones to be collected at the door of college parties to try to keep embarrassing or illegal moments off the Internet.

“The latest stuff with the cellphones and digital devices has erased the boundaries between public and private,” Michael Oriard, an Oregon State professor who has written three books about the culture of college football, said in a telephone interview with CBSSports.com. “It’s an enormous jump, as it’s not just ESPN or Fox cameras, but it’s everyone with a cellphone.”

Oriard, a former Notre Dame football captain, said that college athletes, who are unpaid, experience the problems of celebrities like Tom Brady and Paris Hilton without the monetary payoff. “It’s the downside of celebrity without the upside of it,” he said.

Bradford, McCoy and Tebow, the leading vote-getters for the Heisman Trophy last season, are among the most recognizable people in their states, and they receive intense scrutiny.

McCoy said he called the police when a man was screaming outside his apartment in the middle of the night. Tebow said that he could not go on a date because pictures would be on the Internet in 10 minutes. Bradford, who has been sidelined recently with a shoulder sprain, has had contentious encounters with professional autograph seekers. Each of the players passed up a potential multimillion-dollar N.F.L. contract to return to college. While hanging out with their friends and competing for a national title, there are awkward moments.

At a restaurant recently, McCoy said, a woman in an adjacent booth appeared to be talking on her cellphone but was actually using it to record video of him. He said that he was frequently filmed while walking to class and that he was cautious when people asked to have their photographs taken with him.

As Kent Bradford, Sam’s father, said, “You don’t know if you’re actually having that picture made with a known gambler or a known prostitute or a known drug dealer.”

The three quarterbacks, who are on full scholarship and enjoy the adulation they receive, do not bemoan their fate or complain vigorously. But under NCAA rules, they are not allowed to accept any gifts or receive preferential treatment. All the while, they feel the loss of privacy and crave a little space when in public.

Oriard said technology and social networking had caused another great shift in the way athletes are viewed, following ESPN and 24-hour cable news, which transformed them into celebrities.

“You definitely have to have your guard on everywhere you go,” McCoy said.

Compromising photos and videos of athletes often turn up on the Web. The typical path is from a cellphone to a Facebook page to a message board. Then the mainstream news media pick it up.

Perhaps the most popular distributor of athletes’ pictures is Deadspin.com, known for its snide commentary on modern sports. Deadspin’s editor, A. J. Daulerio, said the site feeds the age-old fascination with athletes’ lives off the field.

“Social networking has put a lot of this out there,” he said. “I think people are still under the impression that those sites are like the diary under the bed. They’re not.”

Our student-athletes need to know and understand this.  The party photo’s on Facebook that provide a ton of laughs in 2009 will turn up in a potential employers office during the summer of 2010, 2011, 2012….. Good-Bye internship.

Autograph seekers create another incessant intrusion; eBay has turned them into entrepreneurs. Kent Bradford said he often finds footballs and 8×10 photographs of his son on the doorstep of his Oklahoma City home.

While in New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony last December, Bradford was continually pestered by a professional autograph collector seeking his signature on a photograph, said Kenny Mossman, the senior associate athletic director for communications at Oklahoma. After Bradford declined to sign several times, the collector ripped the photograph and threw the pieces in his face.

“Sometimes it does get frustrating,” Bradford said.

Some autograph requests can also be bizarre: McCoy has signed a young fan’s forehead and babies’ diapers. When a woman asks him to sign the chest of her shirt, he opts for her shoulder.

“It’s just crazy that you run into people like that,” McCoy said.

But even staying at home cannot always protect college athletes from unwanted attention. Last season a man showed up at McCoy’s apartment at 3 a.m. and woke him by beating on the door and screaming.

“He was calling me by my first name,” McCoy said. “He was yelling at me and telling me to come outside and meet him out there in the yard.”

The police were called and they took the man away, McCoy said. Shortly thereafter, McCoy and his roommates moved to a place where his pickup truck would be less visible.

McCoy said the man had been following him home after practices. Since the incident, he said, he has been more cautious about coming and going at the same time every day.

“It was really scary at the time,” McCoy said. “I really had no idea what to do, how to handle it. I was pretty kind of rattled there for a couple of weeks.”

For those that coach female student-athletes; caution, education and communication are vital to protecting their safety.

NCAA President Myles Brand, the first university president to serve as the Association’s chief executive and a champion of academic reform, fiscal responsibility and student-athlete well-being, died Wednesday from pancreatic cancer.   Dr. Brand was a tremendous leader who always had the best interest of student-athletes in his mind and one who did a valuable job of steering the entire body in a very positive way.  My family and I extend our deepest condolences to Myles Brand’s family – our thoughts are with them during this difficult time.

It would benefit you a great deal to read the legacy of Dr. Brand from the NCAA website.

OTHER LINKS:

Myles Brand, NCAA president, dies By Marcus K. Garner  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The second annual 4Kay™ Golf Classic presented by Nike, was a huge success as 153 women’s basketball coaches, administrators and supporters of the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund®, in partnership with The V Foundation for Cancer Research, gathered in Greensboro, raising over $175,000 for women’s cancers research.

“The Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund is very grateful to the ACC and the City of Greensboro for hosting the 2009 Classic,” said Marsha Sharp, Executive Director of the Fund. “The positive response from our sponsors and coaches resulted in a record $175,000 being raised for the Fund, an increase over last year’s $142,000.”

The celebration began with a charity auction and gala.  Silent auction items donated from organizations around the nation raised nearly $10,000, but the real fireworks flew during the live auction.

The first item was a pair of tickets to the 2010 Orange Bowl, subject of a bidding battle between the Virginia Tech and Auburn coaching staffs.  As the bid grew, the lot was sweetened by Miami head coach Katie Meier offering a dinner for four at Shula’s.

The next three items up for bid were Kay Yow signature items, designated by Coach Yow to benefit the Fund.  First, a pink N.C. State jersey autographed by Coach Yow went to Debbie Leonard (former Duke coach), then a pink hat worn by Coach Yow at the inaugural Classic went to Kristina Johnson, United States Under Secretary for Energy and longtime women’s basketball supporter.  Finally, Coach Yow’s director’s chair led to a bidding war between Fund board members Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma and board President Stephanie Glance.  Auriemma prevailed with a generous $5,000 bid, then doubled his generosity by giving the chair back to the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.

Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt stepped up to volunteer her pink sparkly cowboy hat for an impromptu live auction item, complete with an autograph to the winning bidder.  After the bidding exceeded $1,000, Summitt stepped in and offered $2,000, on the condition that Texas assistant Mickie DeMoss wear the hat during a 2009-10 regular season game.  Virginia Tech head coach Beth Dunkenberger volunteered to increase the bid if Texas head coach Gail Goestenkors would wear the hat to coach a televised game.  Further negotiations and generosity from the assembled coaches led to a total $10,000 contribution, and Goestenkors and Summitt agreeing to each wear a similar hat to coach their December 6 ESPN2 televised match-up in Knoxville, Tenn., in continued public support of the Fund.

Monday morning dawned into a glorious Greensboro day as 39 foursomes kicked off an 8:30 a.m. shotgun start on the Grandover East and West courses.  The format was a four-player captain’s choice, with separate tournaments on the East and West courses.  Awards and Nike prize merchandise, including golf bags, putters, sunglasses, and apparel were presented to each of the top three teams as well as to winners of longest drive, closest to the pin, and longest putt.

Team ACC, led by ACC Commissioner John Swofford, won the East Course tournament, while Team Robuck, captained by Frank Robuck, took top West Course honors.  Full results are included below.

The day ended with an awards luncheon and speeches from ACC Associate Commissioner for Women’s Basketball and Senior Woman Administrators Nora Lynn Finch and Sharp. “It’s apparent that today’s weather was ordered especially for the coaches by Kay Yow,” Finch said to those assembled.

This year’s event was hosted at the Grandover Resort and Conference Center – thanks to support from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the City of Greensboro, the Greensboro Coliseum, the ACC Tournament Host Committee, and the Greensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB).  All proceeds benefited the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.

Local Greensboro women’s basketball coaches and administrators, led by UNC-Greensboro head coach Lynne Agee and Associate AD Kathy Roberts, also gave of their time and resources by serving as the Classic’s welcoming committee.  The Fund’s founding partners, including The Hartford, Nike and GlaxoSmithKline were also in attendance in support of the cause.

Special thanks go to the following sponsors of this year’s Classic: Nike (presenting sponsor), Harrison Turner and the Bryan Foundation (breakfast sponsor), Guilford Sports Hall of Fame (hole sponsor), Touchstone Energy (hole sponsor and beverage cart sponsor), Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (hole sponsor) and the Big XII Conference (beverage cart sponsor).

East Course Results
1st place – Team ACC (-11) – ACC Commissioner John Swofford, Chad Swofford, Jeff Elliott, Amber Elliott.
2nd place – Team Conradt (-8) – Jody Conradt (former Texas head coach), Billie Moore, Mimi Griffin, Chris Plonsky.
3rd place – Team Pepsi (-7) – Brad Corbin, Jimmy Burns, Bob Rusher, Joey Rusher.

Individual Awards: B.J. Chockley (closest to the pin #3), Debbie Leonard (former Duke coach)(closest to the pin #7), Tom Newcome, Sr. (closest to the pin #12), Lynn Davidson (closest to the pin #16), Amber Elliott (women’s longest drive #1), Krista Kilburn (women’s longest drive #10), Jimmy Burns (men’s longest drive #6), Brian Ewald (men’s longest drive #15), Debbie Ryan (Virginia head coach)(longest putt #5), Lulu Eure (longest putt #18).

West Course Results
1st place – Team Robuck (-14) – Frank Robuck, Billy Daniel, Gerry Herakovich, Bruce Ballard.
2nd place – Team Blair (-12) – Gary Blair (Texas A&M head coach), Steve Stevens, Vic Schaeffer, Charlie Milstead.
3rd place team – Team Harper (-11) – Kellie Harper (N.C. State head coach), Jon Harper, Richard Barron, Chris Combs.

Individual Awards:  Charlie Hughes (closest to the pin #3), Jackie Ansley (closest to the pin #5), Dan Delmatro (closest to the pin #11), Kathleen Kunkler (closest to the pin #15 & longest drive #12), Nikki Caldwell (UCLA head coach)(women’s longest drive #2), Jon Harper (men’s longest drive #6), Rob Rayl (men’s longest drive #16), Charlie Milstead (longest putt #7), Marc Bush (longest putt #18).

ACC MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

ACC MEN’S – PDF VERSION

ATLANTIC TEN MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

ATLANTIC TEN MEN’S – PDF

BIG EAST MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – SCHEDULE HAS NOT YET BEEN RELEASED

BIG EAST/SEC INVITATIONAL SCHEDULE

CONFERENCE USA MEN’S BASKETBALL PROSPECTUS

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET RELEASED

COLONIAL CONFERENCE MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – SCHEDULE HAS NOT YET BEEN RELEASED

METRO ATLANTIC ATHLETIC CONFERENCE (MAAC) MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – SCHEDULE HAS NOT YET BEEN RELEASED

MAAC 2009 OLD SPICE CLASSIC SCHEDULE

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE MEN’S BASKETBALL SUMMER PREVIEW

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET RELEASED

PAC-10 MEN’S BASKETBALL PROSPECTUS

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET RELEASED

SEC MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

ACC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

ACC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE – PDF VERSION

ATLANTIC TEN WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PROSPECTUS

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET RELEASED

BIG EAST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – COMPOSITE SCHEDULE HAS YET TO BE RELEASED

CONFERENCE USA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PROSPECTUS

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET RELEASED

COLONIAL CONFERENCE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – COMPOSITE SCHEDULE HAS YET TO BE RELEASED

METRO ATLANTIC ATHLETIC CONFERENCE (MAAC) WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

*LINK IS CORRECT – COMPOSITE SCHEDULE HAS YET TO BE RELEASED

FROM VPHOOPS.COM

2009 PRE-SEASON WNIT 1st ROUND

All 2008-2009 team records in parentheses
Friday, Nov. 13, 2009
Eastern Illinois (24-9) at Ohio State (29-6), 5 p.m. ET
UTEP (18-12) at Florida Gulf Coast (26-5), 7 p.m. ET
Arkansas-Little Rock (26-7) at Oklahoma State (17-16), 7 p.m. ET
Towson (17-13) at West Virginia (18-15), 7 p.m. ET
Winthrop (16-16) at Georgia Tech (22-10), 7:30 p.m. ET
Chicago State (16-13) at Bowling Green (29-5), 7:30 p.m. ET
North Carolina A&T (26-7) at Marist (29-4), 7:30 p.m. ET
Northern Colorado (12-18) at New Mexico (25-11), 9 p.m. ET

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL WEBSITE

*NOTHING YET RELEASED BY NORTHEAST CONFERENCE

PAC-10 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TV SCHEDULE

SEC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL WEBSITE -

*COMPOSITE SCHEDULE NOT YET POSTED.  VU INDIVIDUAL LISTED

When coaching Women’s Basketball in the ACC Coach Kay Yow touches your life.  It did mine and I’m grateful for it.  No matter if you were an assistant coach, a student-manager, a student-athlete, media relations, trainer or operations person.  Coach Yow would treat you with respect.  You would feel important around her.

Coach Yow didn’t know me from Adam when I started on Debbie Ryan’s staff in 2005.  Through the years, she greeted me, hugged me, spent a few moments visiting with me.  Every time.  There were other assistant’s I would see out on the road that never did that.  I didn’t always do that.  She gave us, as coaches, a shinning example of how to respect each other, how to respect the game and how to act within our profession.  In any sport, any level, any gender – much of that respect for our profession is lost these days.  That upset Coach Yow.  It should upset us all.

I read an article recently by Mechell Voepel, shared below, that eloquently tells us… keep carrying on the fight, for Kay.  All of us can help.  Becoming aware, volunteering, donating.. anything that helps us make progress in fighting cancer is important.  It is what is right.  It helps us keep Coach Yow’s fight going.

Learn more.  Consider donating.  Do it for the one’s you love.  Do it 4Kay.  The 4Kay Classic, which is Sept. 14 in Greensboro, N.C.

KAY YOW WBCA CANCER FUND

Here is Mechelle's article.  Enjoy it.  Follow Mechelle on ESPN.com and follow her blog at http://voepel.wordpress.com.

Carrying on Yow’s fight against cancer

By Mechelle Voepel

A year ago in Dallas, Kay Yow started to speak … and everyone else got quiet. The occasion was a gathering the night before the inaugural 4Kay Golf Classic. Yow wasn’t really saying “goodbye” … not directly, anyway. But in retrospect, it was a farewell to some of her colleagues who would not have the chance to see her again.

In January, Yow passed away after a battle with cancer that first began in 1987. Now it’s time for the golf classic again, and this time it’s in her home state of North Carolina.

“People will be coming together to honor her memory and her legacy,” said Stephanie Glance, Yow’s close friend and former assistant coach at NC State. “There will be a lot of talk about Kay, a lot of stories. Because, you know, she really was a funny person and a great storyteller. It will be a celebration of her life. Also, a celebration of the gifts she gave us.”

Kay Yow's memorial stone, made by Iowa artist Roy Dixon. The black granite stone, 6 feet tall by 5 feet wide, will go to Yow's burial site in Gibsonville, N.C.

But it needs to be something else, too — an opportunity for everyone there to pledge that the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund will maintain as much vitality without its namesake as it had with her.

While that might seem obvious, it’s worth hammering home: The true measure of this fund will be its growth and longevity even though Yow is not there to promote it. One of the things the coaches said at last year’s golf event was that Yow was that rare individual who was universally loved and respected in her profession. So when she asked for something, nobody would turn her down.

But she can’t ask anymore. She can’t pick up the phone and call, or send a card or an e-mail.

“It’s going to be a much harder route without Kay,” said Marsha Sharp, the longtime Texas Tech coach who is now executive director of the Yow Fund. “She was in the media telling her own story, drawing people in. We have to find ways to keep people as passionate about it as they were when she was still with us.

“That’s our biggest challenge: to keep that fire from going out. To keep the ‘Pink Zone’ going strong. One of the things Kay always said was, ‘This isn’t about me, it’s about the fight against cancer.’ That’s how she wanted us to go forward: It has to be about the cause.”

Sharp is right; it’s a necessarily pragmatic way to look at things. However, Sharp would also say that it can still be about both: the legacy of Yow intrinsically linked to the crusade against cancer.

Think of it this way: There are college-aged players now who have no memory of watching live as former NC State men’s hoops coach Jim Valvano gave his unforgettable speech at the inaugural ESPYs in 1993, shortly before his death from cancer. But they’re well aware of who Valvano is. They’ve seen the speech replayed; they know he’s the guy who said, “Don’t ever give up.”

The V Foundation is about the fight against cancer … and it’s also about the legacy of Valvano. Enough people vowed to not let his memory fade and thus, even 16 years after his death, he remains a powerfully effective fund-raiser.

Like Valvano, Yow had a moving address at the ESPYs — when, in 2007, she received the Perseverance Award named for him. Also like him, she transcended sports in many ways, and the messages about life that she conveyed during her struggle against cancer would have been the same even if she’d never been ill.

“The way she lived and examples that she gave to people from all walks of life — in sport and out of sport  provided such a positive, optimistic way to live,” Glance said. “She was like that even in the midst of pretty gloomy circumstances. It’s neat to me to hear about people who never knew her, but they are finding out even now. And they are just as inspired as those of us who did know her.”

You know what Yow would think about that. She would smile and say he was blessed.

Dixon isn’t a big sports fan. While he heard the name “Kay Yow,” he really did not know much of her story. Then this spring, he got a call from Kay’s brother, Ronnie, looking for someone to design a memorial stone for Yow’s family to purchase.

“And he’d come across my Web site,” Dixon said. “I’ve come to realize how prominent Coach Yow was, so for a small-town Iowa guy this is a really big thing.”

Dixon’s etching and engraving on memorial stones is a deeply personal art form. His work is a type of emotional alchemy: He takes grief and, with an artist’s touch, tries to turn it into a kind of peace.

He knows that, at first, the design of the stone might be only a small distraction from pain for the bereaved. What he hopes is that as time passes, the stone becomes less an object of sadness and more one of comfort. That when people visit a loved one’s grave, they see images that remind them of what made the person special.

Dixon strives to learn everything he can about his subject. He listens to family and friends, then works closely with them on what the stone needs to represent. To do that, he must feel their love and loss, at least to some degree, as his own. What is in others’ hearts becomes channeled through his hands.

“I’ve had calls from a lot of Coach Yow’s former players and people who have coached with her,” Dixon said. “And I got a distinct feeling that none of them consider her to really be gone. She had made such an impact on them, they still spoke of her in the present tense. A lot of the players thought of her as like a mother or grandmother. It was profound.

“When I first saw some film clips of her, like at the ESPY awards, I began to understand how special she was to a lot of people, and I started to read everything I could on her. It just reinforced how important it was to get this right.”

Dixon takes the same detailed approach to every stone. But in this case, what he means by getting it “right” was to not be overly influenced by Yow’s basketball accomplishments or her celebrity through sports.

“I’d say after nearly 100 calls — with family members, players, friends, colleagues — we decided this was more a monument to who she was as a person,” said Dixon, who will finish his work on Yow’s stone — engravings on both sides — sometime this fall. “Of course, you can’t separate her from her accomplishments; they speak for themselves. But they weren’t what made her ‘Coach Yow.’ It was about who she was other than only basketball.”

Dixon grew up and still lives in Iowa, which has a history with girls’ basketball unlike any other state. Iowa has had a continuous state championship for girls’ hoops since 1920. (Up until the 1984-85 school year, that was exclusively for six-on-six — with three players on each team playing half-court offense and three playing half-court defense — but a handful made the switch to five-on-five then and also had a state tournament. By 1993-94, all schools had to make the mandatory change to five-on-five.)

Dixon said he has learned a lot, in researching Yow, about the growth of the sport for women and girls. And he thinks it’s a neat coincidence that Yow’s memorial stone will come from a state where the grassroots love of girls’ basketball goes back so many decades.

“To reach that number 5,000, we have to get the younger players at the high school and junior high level involved, along with their parents,” Sharp said. “There, it really is at the grassroots level, and that’s what we really believe in.

“I think this fund will grow similar to how women’s basketball has grown: with a lot of blue-collar workers making it happen. That’s how we had to build the sport, and that’s where I’ve always been comfortable working.”

The 4Kay Classic, which is Sept. 14 in Greensboro, N.C., is one of the fundraisers. Right now, it involves only coaches and athletic department personnel, but Sharp is open to the possibility that others might get involved in it.

There is a 4Kay walk/run in conjunction with both the Women’s Final Four wherever it is held (San Antonio in 2010) and the annual Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Knoxville, Tenn.

And the “Pink Zone” is held in February, as college programs across the country wear pink and raise money for the fund.

The WNBA had its own “Pink Zone” the last week of August and made donations to the Yow Fund. Sharp said her hope is for the fund to increase its relationship with the WNBA and all its teams.

Nike, GlaxoSmithKline and The Hartford were all founding partners in the Yow Fund, which began in December 2007.

“Nike has tripled the amount of merchandise it’s offering for the Yow Fund,” Sharp said. “There’s some great stuff that they have added to their apparel list that I think people will be interested in. There are other initiatives we’re working on, too.”

Sharp spent 24 seasons at the helm for Texas Tech, then stepped away from coaching in 2006. She still stayed involved in fundraising for the school, and her position in directing the Yow Fund taps longtime relationships she has had in women’s basketball.

“It allows me to stay engaged in a real meaningful way with all my friends and colleagues in coaching, plus Nike, ESPN and other entities that I’ve worked closely with,” Sharp said. “It’s been really special for me. It’s a great cause. I knew when I quit coaching that I wasn’t through working.”

Meanwhile, Glance has no desire to quit coaching, although she’s away from it now. After finishing the 2008-09 season as interim coach, Glance was not retained by NC State. It was painful for her, but she kept her emotions about it private and didn’t criticize the school.

Glance is president of the board of directors for the Yow Fund, but that is a voluntary, unpaid position. She is a North Carolina native, but is very open to moving anywhere in the country for the right fit in her return to coaching.

“That’s where my passion lies,” she said. “I have a heart for it.”

And, of course, her passion remains for combating cancer. But Glance also stresses it’s about more than the search for a cure. Yow did not live to see a cure, but thanks to improved research and treatment, she gained precious years.

“One of Kay’s messages was that, yes, we all would like to find a cure for cancer, that is the ultimate goal,” Glance said. “But in the process, when you are a person with cancer — or if it’s your family member or close friend — you want a very good quality of life and extension of life.

“So let’s keep giving the money for that, too. Yes, let’s find a cure. But in the meantime, there are a lot of people living with cancer. To me, it’s another reason why raising funds is so important.”