Baller, Boxer, Beauty ...

... Triple Threat Wiggins is a Knockout

Here is a video interview of Candice during the filming of a Nike commercial.

Candice is WNBA Player of the Week

Candice earned her first WNBA Player of the Week award by leading the Minnesota Lynx to two victories last week, which helped them reclaim a share of first place in the Western conference.

She averaged 23.5 points on 45.7% shooting, 4.5 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals.

Her contributions were critical because the Lynx lost their top scorer, Seimone Augustus, for the season two weeks ago with a torn ACL.

Here's a full report from the Minnesota Lynx

Naomi has a son

Naomi Mulitauaopele  and her husband,  Solomona Tagaleo'o ...

... have a beautiful baby boy named Solomona Atapana Tagaleo'o Jr.

You can find more (lots more) pictures of Naomi and her family and friends in her My Space page.

Jennifer's experiences in Knoxville

Jennifer has posted a lot of photos and video clips in her blog that document her induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

Get a box of Kleenex and share her experiences — in particular:

•  The video of her induction speech.

•  The video of her reunion with Miss Mimms, the director of the Day Care Center she attended as a child in Oak Ridge. 

Turkey eliminated from EuroBasket tournament

In spite of Kristin's game-high 20 points, Turkey lost to Belarus in the final game of the qualifying round of the 2009 EuroBasket Women tournament.  Worse — they lost by more than seven points.  

Both teams finished 2 for 3 in the qualifying round, as did Italy. But Turkey had the smallest margin of victory, so ended in 5th place in its group and does not advance to the quarter-finals.

The final score was 80-76. Here is the game card (game report, box score, play-by-play and photos).

Kristin was an outstanding member of the Turkish National Team.  During the tournament, she led the team in points per game (12.7), rebounds per game (6.7) and blocks per game (1.2). She also hit 100% of her free throws. You can read all the details of  her performance here.

Jennifer Azzi inducted into Women's Basketball Hall of Fame

Six extraordinary women were inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday night: Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, Jill Hutchison, Ora Washington, Jennifer Gillom, Sonja Hogg and Jennifer Azzi. They combine for three Olympic gold medals, four WNBA Championships, five NCAA titles, and more than 100 years in the sport of basketball.

This photo of the inductees appeared in Jennifer's blog. (The third woman is Brenda Hogue, Ora Washington's grand-niece, who represented her at the ceremonies. Washington died in 1971.)


Here is a formal photo at the induction ceremony from the WBHOF:


Knoxville TV station WBIR summarizes the inductees' accompishments in this article. Accompanying the article is a video interview before the induction ceremony of Jennifer and her Oak Ridge High School basketball coach, Jill Prudden. This is a larger version of the video clip.

Ann Killion (San Jose Mercury) wrote this article about Jennifer that focussed on Jennifer's decision to attend Stanford and on how she and Tara brought each other success.

"Tara would have been successful without me at Stanford," Azzi said. "But I'm not sure of the reverse. I would have been pretty good, but it's unlikely that I would have truly reached my potential."

"Jennifer put Stanford basketball on the map," VanDerveer said. "She was the catalyst."

In another post to her blog, Jennifer reminisces about her freshman year at Stanford and her dad's Christmas gift to her that painful year.

Game reports from EuroBasket qualifying round

Turkey 64, Italy 59

Turkey 43, France 55

Turkey 70, Belarus 86

Kristen helps Turkey advance to qualifying round

The Turkish National team won two of its three games in the preliminary round of EuroBasket Women:

• vs Russia, L 64-71. Kristen had 10 points, nine rebounds and a block.
  
• vs Lithuania,W 69-66. Kristen had 18 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
  
• vs Serbia, W 65-55. Kristin had six points, seven rebounds and a  block

Kristen's performance is critical to Turkey's success since they are missing their star center Nevriye Yilmaz. The game reports from EuroBasket say nothing more about injured players, but Kristen tweeted last Friday before the competition began, "team is dropping like flies.....acl tear, swollen back, torn ankle ligament, broken cheek bone. pleeeeease no more injuries!"

Now they advance to the qualifying round of the tournament. They begin against Italy on Friday, then play France on Sunday and Belarus on Tuesday.

Kristen and EuroBasket Women tournament

Kristen Newlin is in Latvia with the Turkish National team, competing in the EuroBasket Women tournament for the European championship.

EuroBasket Women is held every other year. It alternates between serving as a qualifying tournament for the FIBA World Championship and the Olympics.

Competition begins today with the preliminary round and continues until the finals on June 20. 

This is a summary of the competition:

Preliminary Rounds: June 7-9. Round-robin competition within each of four groups of four teams. The Turkish team is in Group C with Lithuania, Russia and Serbia. The top 12 teams (three per group) advance to the:

Qualifying Rounds: June 11-16. Round-robin competition within each of two groups of six teams.  The top eight teams (four from each group) advance to the:

Quarterfinals: June 17-18. Four games with teams seeded according to the qualifying rounds (A1 vs B4, A2 vs B3, etc.). All eight teams advance to the:

Semifinals: June 19. Winners play winners, losers play losers. All advance to the:

Finals: June 20. Winners play winners, losers play losers. #1 is the European champion and qualifies for the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women.

For more information, see:

• The EuroBasket Women 2009 website. Current results and standings are posted on the home page.
  
• The entire tournament schedule.
  
• A diagram of the tournament structure
  
• Links to the 16 participating teams
  
• The Turkish National team website. If you're looking for information about Kristen, remember that her Turkish name is Nevin Nevlin.
  

Latvia  is in far northern Europe, about the same latitude as Sitka, Alaska. Kristen tweets that the long daylight hours are messin' her.

The Turkish team has already played two pre-competition friendly games. They lost to Latvia 84-67, in spite of Kristen's 20 points. They defeated Ukraine  82-76; Kristen had 10 points and five rebounds.

Brooke makes the team

Brooke's hard work and good performance at training camp paid off. She begins her second season with the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday.

Congratulations, Brooke!

Here's more about Brooke and the Phoenix Mercury's new uniform by Jake Curtis, Stanford Cardinal Basketball Examiner.