Virginia retires Monica Wright’s jersey after win over Va. Tech

The banner uncoiled from the rafters of John Paul Jones Arena, forever retiring Virginia senior Monica Wright’s No. 22 jersey. Most of the 6,264 fans that attended the Cavaliers’ 55-46 win over rival Virginia Tech on Sunday stayed long after the buzzer sounded, celebrating the Woodbridge native who has cemented her spot as one of the finest players in Virginia women’s basketball history.

Monica Wright

Wright played her final home game on Sunday and was the lone senior honored on a day when the Cavaliers (21-8, 9-5 ACC) clinched the No. 3 seed in this week’s conference tournament.

The post-game ceremony included a video presentation with words of praise and appreciation from her teammates.  Wright spoke, thanking God, each member of the coaching staff, her teammates, her parents and Virginia’s fans.

“I tried not to look at the coaches, because they were all tearing up,” Wright said. “I didn’t want to cry.

“I was just in my head going through all the people I wanted to thank. Just trying to make sure my speech was intact.”

The afternoon was more fulfilling because of the victory. Wright broke Virginia’s scoring record in a Jan. 11 loss to Maryland, creating a bittersweet evening. Sunday’s ceremony would not have been as heartwarming for everyone involved had the Cavaliers lost to the Hokies (15-14, 4-10).

Wright started the game sluggish as a result of end-of-season exhaustion and received intravenous therapy at halftime to bolster her for the second half. She finished with 27 points and 10 rebounds, while the rest of her teammates shot only 25.8 percent from the field and together barely outscored the Cavaliers’ star.

“Let’s have a big party and welcome her to the WNBA and level out that playing field,” Virginia Tech Coach Beth Dunkenberger said.

Before Wright departs, there remains a burden to overcome. Virginia has not reached the regionals of the NCAA tournament since 2000 after becoming a regular during the 1990s.

As Ryan said before the season started, it helps that Virginia has Wright. She has received all-ACC honors three times during her career, and will soon add a fourth. It continues a career that started at Forest Park High, where she led the Bruins in scoring in each of her four seasons, was a three-time All-Met and was the 2006 All-Met Player of the Year.

Ryan emphasized that Wright’s legacy will be entrenched as much for her off-the-court persona, where she has remained a model citizen during her time at Virginia. Teammates spoke about Wright’s example in the classroom and her willingness to stop and talk with kids and fulfill autograph requests.

Young girls filled John Paul Jones Arena on Sunday with shirts featuring Wright’s No. 22. Those shirts will likely give way to a new crop of Virginia stars in coming seasons, but Wright is “honored” to know that her jersey was retired.

Virginia returns everyone next year, except Wright, the current crop of Freshman were the #3 ranked recruiting class in the country by Blue Star.

Popularity: 10%

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

Learning How to Be More Aware

When you think of a “perfect leader,” what comes to mind?  Who comes to mind?

You might picture someone who never lets their temper get out of control, no matter what problems they’re facing. You might think of someone who has the complete trust of their staff, always speaks kindly, listens to their team, is easy to talk to and always makes careful, informed decisions.

These are qualities of someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence or EI.  Wikipedia gives us this for EI:

Emotional Intelligence (EI) describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others, and of groups.^[1] Different models have been proposed for the definition of EI and disagreement exists as to how the term should be used.^[2] Despite these disagreements, which are often highly technical, the ability EI and trait EI models (but not the mixed models) enjoy support in the literature and have successful applications in different domains.

In this article, they look at why emotional intelligence is so important for leaders – and how you, as a leader, can improve yours.  In our highly charged and emotional professional setting – EI can be critical to success.

Follow the below link for the complete article.

From:  Mind Tools  

Popularity: 10%

Former Rutgers Guard Seeks Overseas Path to W.N.B.A.

Epiphanny Prince

What started at Rutgers the last three years, had a couple month stop in Russia is now headed for Botas Spor, a team in Adana, Turkey – an American-friendly city near a United States military base about 90 minutes by airplane from Istanbul.

Epiphanny Prince began her professional playing career for Spartak Moscow and Head Coach Pokey Chatman.

I heard she had yet to play because owner Shabtai von Kalmanovic was working on her Russian pass port when tragedy struck.  Piph is fortunate to land in Turkey.  This could be a blessing in disguise for Prince.  More playing time is on the horizon and that will give WNBA General Managers a more valuable body of work to assess her draft status.

The story does not elaborate on how the progress is going towards moving her family from their Brooklyn home.  The focus of Piph’s journey has been reported as two-fold: 1.) Provide for her family and 2.)  Prepare better for WNBA.

Let’s update this in a month and see how her progress is going.

From GREG BISHOP, New York Times

Popularity: 52%

Fewer fouls called on home team

They don’t all need glasses. But if you always suspected basketball referees are biased — well, you’re right, according to a couple of professors who’ve studied the matter.

Refs favor the home team, the academics say. They’re big on “make-up” calls. They make more calls against teams in the lead, and the discrepancy grows if the game is on national TV.

The professors studied 365 college games during the 2004-05 season and found that refs had a terrific knack for keeping the foul count even, regardless of which team was more aggressive.

Continue Reading…

Popularity: 21%

Play of The Day

Not SportsCenter… IDEAS.

Watching San Antonio vs. Washington.

Saw a nice inverted High Split used as a pressure release for PTG:  Used with good passing center (Duncan), with Back Door action into inverted High Split.

CLICK for DOWNLOADABLE / PRINTABLE Play

Popularity: 44%